by Charlie Brice
In Cheyenne we never did those drills
where we hid under our desks, paper
atop our heads, to fend off the fallout
that would kill us. Frances E. Warren
Air Force Base was two miles away.
Cheyenne was ringed with ICBMs hidden
in prairie-silos. In Cheyenne, we practiced
getting home on time. If it took more than
fifteen minutes, we were out of luck. Some
of us played dodgeball instead. Why break up
that brutal game to say goodbye? We’d twist
like bullfighters away from the ball. The last
kid standing won. He’d become the brightest
particle in the ion field when the war was done.
Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His ninth full-length poetry collection is Tragedy in the Arugula Aisle (Arroyo Seco Press, 2025). His poetry has been nominated for the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, Chiron Review, The MacGuffin, and elsewhere.
January House Literary Journal 
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