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.