Second Coming No. 54 — March 14, 2025

A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House

Karen Hildebrand
After the Supreme Court Ruling

Driving down a single laned road,
the kind made by two tire tracks,
patch of grass spiking between like a fresh
bikini wax, we’ve been invited to share
peach pie and despair. We
remark on the new sofa—zesty
mustard yellow—plans for the pile of rocks
out back, a new border that would pull
our state into the mothering arms of Canada
along with the green of Vermont. What if, will he,
should we, why not? When we stumble to the car,
Big Dipper bold overhead, I’m reminded of the dot-
by-dot celestial map, 7th grade science
homework, how to find the North Star.

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Karen Hildebrand is the author of Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Indolent Books, 2018). Her newest poems appear in Defunct, LEON, Maintenant, Mom Egg Review, No Dear, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies Braving the Body (Harbor Editions, 2024) and Beacon Radiant (Great Weather for Media, 2024). She writes about dance for Fjord Review and The Brooklyn Rail, and can be heard on the Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival podcast. Her poetry criticism appears in LEON Literary Review, Lily Poetry Review, Cutthroat, and Lightwood. She lives in Brooklyn.

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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 current occupant of the White House. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.

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

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