Second Coming – 1 Day…

A poem-a-day series in creative response to the threats posed to our democracy by the incoming presidential administration

Kristy Snedden
Birds of America

Never so ferocious
were the silver bullet outcomes
after the 2024 election.
Silver-tipped words, silver-tipped birds.
Fellow vultures and cranes,
with silver-sheened wings, I’m sorry.
I forgot, I let you down, I meant to,
I meant to be a Northern Goshawk
but I slipped into an inky field of stars.
The woods are full of deer
and a bear next to the pond
where warblers hang on branches,
yellow heads and silver wings
statues in the water’s reflection.
If you came calling with your guns tonight,
I would hold you from afar
hold you in wing-shimmer.
Even Christ would pause here
but you are speeding on the highway
headed somewhere I don’t live.

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Kristy Snedden is a trauma psychotherapist. Her poetry has appeared most recently in Contemporary Verse 2 and storySouth. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Kristy runs Brainspotting Through the Poet’s Eye groups to deepen healing with poetry and Brainspotting. Her debut full-length poetry collection is forthcoming from Indolent Books. She loves hiking in the Appalachian Mountains near her home in Georgia and listening to her husband and their dogs tell tall tales.

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Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the second Trump administration. The series is currently counting down the last five days before Inauguration Day and will enter a new phase tomorrow with a poem for Day 1. The current plan is to continue for all 1461 days of the 47th presidential administration of the United States of America.

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Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.