“listening to her practice: my middle daughter, on the edge of adolescence, learns to play the saxophone” by barbara cooker for rebecca her hair, that halo of red gold curls, has thickened, coarsened, lost its baby fineness, and the sweet smell of childhood that clung to her clothes has just about vanished. now she’s getting moody, moaning about her hair, clothes that aren’t the right brands, boys that tease. she clicks over the saxophone keys with gritty fingernails polished in pink pearl, grass stains on the knees of her sister’s old designer jeans. she’s gone from sounding like the smoke detector through old macdonald and jingle bells. soon she’ll master these keys, turn notes into liquid gold, wail that reedy brass. soon, she’ll be a woman. she’s gonna learn to play the blues. source: cooker, barbara. “listening to her practice: my middle daughter, on the edge of adolescence, learns to play the saxophe.” ordinary life. new york: byline press, 2000. el camino college. web. 6 may 2011. which line from the poem illustrates a simile?

the speech this question is referring to is president kennedy's special message to the congress on urgent national needs, may 25, 1961

kennedy responds in a very direct and concrete way to those thinking that communism is a positive system:

"yet their aggression is more often concealed than open. they have fired no missiles; and their troops are seldom seen. they send arms, agitators, aid, technicians and propaganda to every troubled area. but where fighting is required, it is usually done by others--by guerrillas striking at night, by assassins striking alone--assassins who have taken the lives of four thousand civil officers in the last twelve months in vietnam alone--by subversives and saboteurs and insurrectionists, who in some cases control whole areas inside of independent nations." (kennedy)

president kennedy presents communism as cowardly, as a hidden and treacherous weapon that strikes from the shadows like thieves, he represents the system as not even being capable of showing and open and overt attack or confrontation. to finish up the response, he expresses that the system attacks even a country's idependence and freedom.

for the comment!