Remains of World War III

Sometimes a distance in time allows the possible enormity to sink in. It never quite occurred to me that the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War and World War III were linked. Of course it did occur to my father, who fought in WWII. 

We always begin

With our own experience.

Where else

Would we begin?

Then certain pictures

Bring home

How widespread

It was,

How widespread

It is.

The remains

Of the possibility

Of World War III

Are left

All over the world.

I begin

At a fall-out shelter

In northern Minnesota

Stocked

With enough food,

Even dogfood.

I was seven

And a cat

For Halloween.

My parents

Had the radio on,

Tried to make things

As normal as possible

In the north woods

Of Minnesota,

That October.

The remains

Of the beginning

Of World War III

Still remain

All over the world.