The Russians Are Coming

Carolyn Caines

     they told us in school;
they have bombs they will drop on us.
My teacher said this in a calm voice,
the same voice that one would use
to read bedtime fairy tales.
But no one really believed
a wicked witch wanted to eat
little boys and girls.

The bell would ring again and again,
as we’d scramble under our desks.
Put your head between your knees,
lace your fingers over your head,
and no talking. 
After the ‘all clear,’ we’d crawl out
from under our desks, get back in our seats, 
and continue with our lessons.

Our neighbors were believers.
They had a bomb shelter 
in the basement just off the rec room. 
No bigger than a walk-in closet,
it had cement walls, bunks along the sides,
and shelves stocked with water
and tins of stew.

In our garage, the tins of food, lined up
on a high shelf, eventually rusted.
If the Russians came with bombs,
I often wondered what good it would do 
to duck while clutching a can of peaches.

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