Robert Cooperman

BOMB THREAT

In high school, we’d sometimes
be rushed from the building:
a bomb threat sirened in,
some kid unprepared
for the midterm or final.

Running past our frowning teachers
and the vice principal glaring
divine retribution, we’d laugh
our heads off: the rest of the day ours,

the bomb squad taking hours,
with their sniffer dogs,
before giving the all-clear,
though always the unlikely chance
a psychopath with a grudge
had planted a bomb near
the chem lab or in the cafeteria.

Now, vacationing in France,
we read the email:
your campus evacuated,

“In an abundance of caution,”
at a bomb threat on this first day
of summer school finals.

“Probably some kid too busy
partying,” we think, though
always the fear of nut jobs
pissed off they no longer
rule the whole world:

the bastards too stupid
to realize too much of it
is still theirs.


Gerald So's YouTube reading of "Bomb Threat":



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Bob confesses: "After self-quarantining for two years, my wife and I finally visited her family in France this summer. While Beth was scrolling through her e-mails, she found one about a bomb threat called into her college campus, back in Denver. Thankfully, it was a hoax, but it brought back memories of when kids in my high school would call in threats if they hadn't studied for a big exam. And the chance to take a swipe at the vicious-idiot right wing was too tempting to resist."


ROBERT COOPERMAN's latest collections are Go Play Outside (Apprentice House) and Reefer Madness (Kelsay Books). Forthcoming from Kelsay Books is A Nightmare on Horseback.