Second Coming No. 57 — March 17, 2025

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

Laurel Brett
Rendezvous

If I should meet you
at the summit of a snowy mountain

let us not burden each other
with our stories of how the world

has wronged us—our genes,
our histories, our disappointments.

Instead, let us each pull up a chair
and say our names.

Let one of us point
to a peregrine falcon,

wings extended in an ecstasy
of flight, without remarking

on its predatory nature. Let
the other admire

the way the white around us
dazzles without remembering

the melting on Mt. Fuji.
It’s true—at the foot of this peak

the very fabric of the earth unravels.
We each know this. No need

to speak. For this moment—
a mountain, snow, a falcon and us.

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Laurel Brett is the author of the novel The Schrödinger Girl (Kaylie Jones Books, 2020) and the literary critical study Disquiet on the Western Front: World War II and Postmodern Fiction (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016). Born in New York City, she lives in Port Jefferson, NY, and teaches in the English department at Nassau Community College in Garden City.

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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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