Attacks
Mary Winters
Air Force survival manual:
city dweller, you ordered it rush
a decade ago for nuclear war.
Your plan: merge at the
Golden Lamb Inn, Lebanon Ohio
with other surviving kin
but you always knew if
any place was going to blow
it was New York City. So that
manual warning of deceptively
appealing smallish mammals and
welcoming inhabitants with
straightforward unclouded smiles
is of course just a placebo, but
still you enjoy the pictures;
those natives like travelers
entering your personal space in the
train station “just to ask one
question” -- people who make the
hair on the back of your neck
stand up, their threatening
masquerade to look just like you,
with bottles of acid to throw in
your face -- which you know too
drips down from “innocent”
air conditioners in summer and
rooftops year-round as citizens --
“innocent” -- water their
high-up gardens while you
hurry along head down.
