Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash
What’s in that leather pouch,
cross-body, shoulder to hip,
like a bandito’s bandolier?
Papers? Writing so tiny I’d need
a magnifying glass? Ravings
top to bottom, both sides,
notes cramming the margins?
Does it contain names, plans
for a government overthrow
from some clandestine leader
unkempt and wild-eyed?
Photos from inside the Pentagon?
Tell me his cap is not lined
with chewing gum wrappers.
Tell me there’s no explosive
on his hands, his leather boots.
Tell me his camouflage
was purchased for warmth,
and cheapness, not issued
by a paramilitary group
encamped in Idaho’s mountains.
Tell me the bulge beneath his jacket
is not a bomb. I need to know
he doesn’t carry three passports
in other names, has not memorized
a code word alerting him
to press a button, go out in a blaze
of twisted metal and glory. Tell me
we won’t be tomorrow’s headline,
spattered across the front page
and I-84 – weary travelers hoping
only to reach Boise before midnight.
Ann Howells edited Illya’s Honey for eighteen years. Recent books: So Long As We Speak Their Names (Kelsay Books, 2019) and Painting the Pinwheel Sky (Assure Press, 2020). Chapbooks include: Black Crow in Flight, Editor’s Choice in Main Street Rag’s 2007 competition and Softly Beating Wings, 2017 William D. Barney Chapbook Competition winner (Blackbead Books). Her work appears in small press and university publications including Plainsongs, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and San Pedro River Review.