by Madeleine French
what you’ll do when it happens
(you don’t)
and grace won’t bloom through the cracks
either; just forget that
Each morning I call the roll
everyone who should have this
instead of me
like Christo-fascists, so easy to hate
all sanctimony and bad hair
It hasn’t helped—
focusing on
anyone
despicable
anyone stupid or selfish
is a waste of time
Turns out, this fight is a waiting game, and
they’ve given me Nerf guns & water pistols:
90-day blood tests
mindfulness
exercise “for better outcomes”
supplement capsules, big as the Hindenburg
(I fear they’ll combust spontaneously
in my esophagus)
I need a bat, to bust out some headlights
leaving glass shards on the asphalt
like tiny middle fingers in the sun or a fat brick
to hurl through a window
(no fingerprints)
Imagine the satisfying crash,
the shrill alarm
assaulting your eardrums
then the conflagration
a bass roar, stopping your breath
“Refugee” blaring somewhere down the block
that’s the battle I want
the one I’d win
Madeleine French lives with her husband in Florida and Virginia, where she shuffles projects among seven sewing machines, and rereads Jane Austen every spring. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Black Fork Review, The Madrigal, Poetica Review, Paddler Press, West Trade Review, Thimble Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. You may find her on Twitter, @maddiethinks, or at Post, @maddiewrites.
Emerge Literary Journal 