A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House
Lynn McGee
How to Prepare for a Looming Disaster
The Navy sent a hospital ship to drop anchor
in New York Harbor, skyline rising like crowded teeth,
Covid biting down on our city as the ship floated
in all its stoic glory, colossal red cross stocky
on its top deck, white reflection rippling.
Sirens sliced the city. A text hit all our phones,
cancelling mammograms, dental cleanings,
clearing space for medics in white hazmat suits,
refrigerator trucks idling as backup morgues,
Empire State Building pulsing red,
and turning red, white and blue four years later,
election results staggering in from Arizona,
Georgia, Michigan, disaster returning,
this time unmasked.
This isn’t our first rodeo, governors of a dozen
states, staff at the ACLU and attorneys general
reminded us. Don’t give in to fear, they told us.
Update your passport. Carry your driver’s
license, work permit.
I sat useless on my couch, a battery of active shooter
videos under my belt, the kind HR mandates—
not the mantras we grew up with; Stop, Drop, Roll,
if your sleeve catches on fire; See Something,
Say Something, if your paranoia peaks—
but a slogan that admits the corner we’ve been
backed into: Run. Hide. Fight.
Lynn McGee is the author of the poetry collections Science Says Yes (Broadstone Books, 2024), Tracks (Broadstone Books, 2019), Sober Cooking (Spuyten Duyvil, 2016) and two prize-winning chapbooks: Heirloom Bulldog (Bright Hill Press, 2015) and Bonanza (Slapering Hol Press, 1996). With José Pelauz she co-authored the children’s book Starting Over in Sunset Park (Tilbury House Press, 2021). Recent poetry publications include Naugatuck River Review, Sugar House Review, Lascaux Review, The Atlanta Review, Atticus Review, and other journals, as well as the anthology I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe (Milk & Cake Press, 2022), eds. Susana H. Case and Margo Taft Stever.
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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