Second Coming No. 29 — Feb. 17, 2025
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House
Susana H. Case
How to Survive Dictatorship
Twist its neck to paralyze your chicken,
so neighbors won’t hear squawking and report you.
Pluck feathers with curtains drawn,
each member of the family taking
a handful to dispose of one street over.
Don’t cook chicken in the common kitchen,
where neighbors might walk in.
Curry the chicken in the middle of the night
on the outside terrace, fragrance
masked with herbs, hope that everyone stays asleep
during food shortages. Yes, the chicken may be bitter,
but your neighbors don’t have any—they will report you.
Get rid of the evidence of bones—crush them to use in soup.
Carefully self-manage your abortion, hide evidence
of your medication, in case you live
in the United States, where your neighbors will report you.
Susana H. Case is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently If This Isn’t Love (Broadstone Books, 2023), and co-editor with Margo Taft Stever of I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe (Milk & Cake Press, 2022), a finalist for Best Book and International Book Awards sponsored by American Book Fest. The first of her five chapbooks, The Scottish Café (Slapering Hol Press, 2002) was released in an English-Polish edition, Kawiarnia Szkocka, by Opole University Press, and in an English-Ukrainian edition, Шотландська Кав’ярня, by Slapering Hol Press.
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.
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Good one, and so scary. This a good time for people to read or reread the author's book The Scottish Café. I just noticed that Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, and other nearby areas coveted by Putin used to constitute the Pale, for whatever that might mean.