Second Coming No. 74 — April 3, 2025
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House
Gail Thomas
Nowhere to Hide
When my three-year-old ears heard hooves clop and wagons creak on our unpaved street, I dove under my parents’ bed. Fear of the ragman who shouted Rags, bring out your rags. I was warned to be good or he’d come for a naughty girl. Now, my old ears hear the rattle and whirl of wind banging windows. Not fear of the storm, but howls of the bully-child who would be king of white America who betrays grandmothers and grandfathers who worked underground, laid tracks, poured steel, taught children, planted wheat, soldiered, who paid with taxes and blood. When we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak, wrote Audre Lorde. So we say black/gay/trans Say race/ethnicity/immigrant Say women/bias/gender Say climate crisis Say injustice The rag man of our age erases history, recycles chaos. When our voices drown out his lies, we will hear red/white/blue again.
Gail Thomas is the author of Leaving Paradise (Human Error Publishing, 2022) and five other poetry collections that have garnered a number of awards. Her poems have appeared in One Art, Summerset Review, SWWIM, Nixes Mate, among other journals, as well as in anthologies. A former high school English teacher and college professor, Thomas lives in Western Massachusetts and teaches poetry with the Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop in Northampton.
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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