Arlene Weiner: Wordless

My mother’s magazines advised

“togetherness,” advertised Simplicity patterns

for matching mother-and-daughter dresses,

asked “Can This Marriage Survive?”

I found Popular Science, admired

the clear lines and cheerful mien

of “Wordless Workshop.” Each month

a pointy-nosed hero, handy husband,

briefly studied some problem: scattered

towels, shattered glass. Not long perplexed,

he set to work next with dowels and drill,

assembled some device shown in panel 2

overhead, in exploded view. Oh daddy!

The men came home from Korea,

The Rosenbergs were executed, the H-bomb

flowered over the Pacific. We schoolchildren

were issued dog tags. Gary McMann told me

When you hear sirens put your tag in your mouth

in case your head is blown off.

Twelve drawings in the Wordless Workshop.

In the last one, the wife, the child, the dog are happy.

Copyright 2017 Arlene Weiner

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Russia’s first hydrogen bomb test, Vidashki, August 12, 1953