Love in the Time of the Cuban Missile Crisis

An hour after our idolized lionized Catholic president tells the nationwe might all get blown to kingdom come any day nowyou exit your parents’ warmly lit living room& step all bundled up into the windless chill of a late October nighta zit-faced skinny-as-a-stickball bat 14-year-old looking for the exotic16-year-old girl next door walking her pint-sized full-sized dog— with nuclear annihilation imminent you figureyou might as well bare your soul & tell her how you feel.

For nearly two weeks Kennedy & Khrushchev & Cubahold civilized existence in a chokehold of existential crisisas lines into churches of all denominations spill onto the streetsand for nearly two weeks you find comfort in cold clear nightswalking with the exotic girl next door as if in a fever talkingabout doomsday desires & diminutive dogs until like roiling wintry cloudsthe crisis & fever pass — the former with an extended collective exhalethe latter with a singular sigh leaving a small surgical scar on your psyche.