Papa, Child, Cold War Poem by Ann Cotten

When I learned how you put my little half-sister to bed
and how in good moments I converse with my lover, I realized:

Did you talk with me in my early years
in the dusk before sleeping time?
(serious conversations they were
between two earnest young men)
And then pretend you didn't know me
during the daytime?
Letting only a tiny glint in your eye
promise you did know - far away?
That I might draw another breath
of it tomorrow?



All means of the mind Mobilize Against Communism!
These minds!
Are all for it,
if one doesn't Chastize them!

Minds, queue up
for an autogram!
Dont, minds, glance over
at the people laying the carpet!
Thinking means to be limp and disjointed.
Minds! Guttenberg and the newspapers have given the order:
All minds sneer at the count of three!
Whole must not, or else gone! Luxury reigns!
Steel/ Glass/ Steel/ Glass/ Steel/ Glass/