DC PLACES ISSUE Kathi Morrison-Taylor   BOMB POP In downtown Washington just blocks from the White House you can still buy a Bomb Pop – its red, white, and blue warhead portrait displayed on the Good Humor cart next to Fudgsicles and Sundae Cones; its novelty rocket of cherry, lemon and raspberry a bestseller in this no-fly zone. Last Friday, a bomb threat cleared the monuments, closed Constitution and Independence for hours. Trapped on the mall, a tourist dad stopped to cool off with a Bomb Pop, licked those memories – Cold War, fallout shelters, brain freeze – basking in Homeland Security. Forgive me, but I suspect someone’s filming me as I ask for one, as I’m pointing, as the vendor’s reaching into his silo.     Kathi Morrison-Taylor's work has appeared in Seattle Review, New York Quarterly, and Southern Poetry Review, among others. Last summer her poem "Hermit Crab" won the Moving Words competition and was displayed on Metro buses throughout Northern VA. She teaches middle school English in Washington, DC.   Published in Volume 7, Number 3, Summer 2006.   To read more by this author: Morrison-Taylor on Joaquin Miller: Forebears Issue Kathi Morrison-Taylor