Second Coming No. 42 — March 2, 2025
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House
Guillermo Filice Castro
I Am Not Alone: Equilibrium
I am looking for balance. Steady ship
on a serene, sparrow-crossed ocean. Balance.
Avoid phone notifications though something
may slip through. My love for the world,
if I can call it that, this life, breaks my heart.
Hope the cat won’t soil the floor again, disturbed by
a different litter or who knows what. How sublime
to watch her high wire act along the edge of the sofa,
not a single misstep, while last week a runaway
dump truck smashed clean into our local store.
My little suburban world on a hill, shaken.
We had an earthquake, too. Another ICE raid.
Small & cave-bound, the best among us
would sketch hunt scenes on walls. Tomorrow
the noise of light & revision might kill off
this poem losing its footing. The glass Father
left unwashed in the sink. No matter
what I did, they, my parents, always fought,
even if I prayed or didn’t touch myself for a week,
Mother still tried to jump out of his moving car.
My favorite book as a teen was The Omen II,
turned on by what felt like sexual tension
between the young antichrist & his cousin.
I am in love with the son of the devil, something
I could say now to upset Christian nationalists.
Balance. After choir practice: a quiet room.
Then flames tore through the clutter in my school.
What can love do. Rebuild, try again.
Guillermo Filice Castro is the author of the chapbooks Mixtape for a War (Seven Kitchens Press, 2018) and Agua, Fuego (Finishing Line Press, 2015). His work has appeared in journals including Allium, Barrow Street, Brooklyn Rail, Fugue, Mulberry Literary Review, New Verse News, Pine Hills Review, and others, and is included in Best American Poetry 2023, edited by Elaine Equi. Born and raised in Argentina, Castro lives in New Jersey with his husband.
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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