Courtney LeBlanc reads “Call to Arms.”
Here’s how it happened:
there was an anger brimming,
there was a hatred burning
hot like frostbite. There was
a desire to return to how it
had been two hundred years ago.
Let’s start over.
I walk out of the bathroom and my brother
places the gun on the kitchen counter. I know
from the last school shooting that it’s an AR-15.
I do not know if it is loaded. I do not care. I feel
the anxiety climbing my spine, each vertebra
a knobby rung.
I want to believe my family isn’t like this but
I found a MAGA hat in the closet and I know
this is red country. My sister and I threw it
into a trashcan on the street. My father won’t
wear it again, won’t vote in the next election, won’t
live through the weekend.
Let’s begin again.
When I’m home I go for a run on the National Mall,
the Confederate flag and camo crowd is gathering.
Every backpack is suspect, every stare a challenge.
My body feels like a target.
The night before I watched the video, the viral
call to arms. The fear crawled over my skin like fire
ants, hungry and incessant. If my brother lived
closer, he’d be in the crowd.
**
This poem was originally published in The Quarantine Review.
