Second Coming No. 145 — June 13, 2025
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by the current occupant of the White House and his regime
Susan Goodman
A Place of Rest
At the end of this planet is a single bench
above a canyon, near a border
ringed with teeth and bone,
close to a depth of water
making no sound.
I step away for some moments
while the grey skies turn
and the red smoke burns,
while the world rumbles and groans,
while it swallows and spews.
I watch and stay quiet
as it begins to come near
and I turn to its instants and outcomes.
I return each day to the edge of the world,
sink down to the sidewalk and listen.
Susan Goodman’s poems have appeared in What Rough Beast, Nixes Mate Review, The Columbia Review, Barrow Street, Corvus Review, and elsewhere. As a Barnard College undergraduate, she received the George Edward Woodberry Poetry Prize. Now retired, Goodman worked as a magazine and nonprofit copywriter. She lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
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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