Notes for foreign (or younger) reader. DDT was an insecticide sprayed to kill mosquitoes; such spraying has since been banned as unhealthy. Good Humor was the brand name for an ice cream that was sold from trucks back in the 1950s.
The Fifties
Polio haunted the public pools
as mushroom clouds darkened our dreams,
but when the DDT truck sprayed the streets
we ran as if we’d heard Good Humor’s call–
flocking around it to play Dracula
lurking in the London fog
while we breathed as deeply
as we would on any other smoke
and laughed at the monsters
of our imagination.
The Fifties
Polio haunted the public pools
as mushroom clouds darkened our dreams,
but when the DDT truck sprayed the streets
we ran as if we’d heard Good Humor’s call–
flocking around it to play Dracula
lurking in the London fog
while we breathed as deeply
as we would on any other smoke
and laughed at the monsters
of our imagination.
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