by Claire Matturro
We ran and jumped and bounced
over monkey bars in sandy school yards
then raced inside at the bell’s
shrill scream and covered our heads
as we crouched beneath wooden
desks that smelled of crayons and
fruit punch while outside
the open jalousie windows
cardinals and mockingbirds sang
their sweet wild songs
as soulless men hid
missiles in Cuban silos and
played chess with the end of the world
but we didn’t worry
because we were seven
and our mothers stockpiled
food and juice in pantries
and our fathers turned
the TV low so not to wake us.
We ran and jumped and lobbed
volley balls in sandy school yards
and the slap of leather against
our hands made us laugh
while soulless men
tested nuclear bombs and
played chess with the end of the world
but we didn’t care
because we were thirteen
and besides one of us had
a left-over bomb shelter
in her broad backyard where
we once played dolls and drank
canned juices from stockpiles
hidden behind concrete and steel.
I no longer run or jump and
the sandy school yard is silent
with pandemic and children gone
inside and the bomb shelter
long traded for a swimming pool
and its stockpiled juices tossed
into landfills yet soulless men still
play chess with the end of the world
as troops mass at borders and
the hurricane which will find
me in my glass house
breeds silently in melting ice
and the oil keeps flowing and
the coal keeps burning and
the missiles stockpiled in places
where children hide
their heads under thin arms
guarantee the collateral damage
we’ve learned to turn away from
as cardinals and mockingbirds
go quiet in the world outside my windows.
Claire Matturro has been a journalist, a lawyer, and a legal writing teacher at Florida State University and University of Oregon. She is the author of seven novels, including a legal thriller series published by HarperCollins, and is the co-author of a recent novel. She is an associate editor at Southern Literary Review and lives in Florida.