Second Coming No. 132 — May 31, 2025
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House and his regime
Dion O’Reilly
Blackness Between Trees
6 November 2024
In a place where nothing dies,
a blackness between trees.
We carry darkness there
and drop it like a bone.
We carry deer names, dog names.
We carry them like hope.
We carry a fear which can’t hear
the singing beneath leaves.
We bring our dangerous fingers,
stained with madder and blood.
In the unseen
place where nothing dies,
we hold the eyeless, the featherless.
We hold the fallen.
Dion O’Reilly is the author of the chapbook Limerence (Floating Bridge Press, 2025) and the full-length collections Sadness of the Apex Predator (Cornerstone Press, 2024) and Ghost Dogs (Terrapin Books, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Canary, Rhino, Cultural Daily, Rattle, Sequestrum, and other journals. O’Reilly divides her time between a ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains and a residence in Bellingham, Washington.
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 current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.
Find out how to submit poems or flash prose pieces to Second Coming.
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