day EIGHT HUNDRED and NINETY TWO

Great, Again

Gray regime breakfast

blunt and slow: rain pours

intermittent, sideways.

As the television drones

of political sports,

the dry eggs assault me

with unknown ingredients.

Finally, the big game:

the crowd watches, aghast.

They huddle in blankets

as the action unfolds

on the fields below. How

can one man inspire

such fear? The monster terrifies,

but he is visible. Much worse

are the ones I can't see.

Sleep in fits and starts

the night before, dream

of clever escape. Forced

into wooded exile,

my daughter and I

manage to stay miles

ahead of attackers, but she

forgets her sleeping bag.

“Take mine,” I tell her,

without hesitation.

I walk across the beach

as birds argue about

leftover garbage, and

waves continue their

indifferent pounding.

The manufactured greatness

of humans is so

much less than this,

but the carnage compels

and I can't stop looking.

--Leah Mueller

Leah Mueller is an indie writer and spoken word performer from Tacoma, Washington. She is the author of two chapbooks and four books. Her next two books, "Death and Heartbreak" and "Misguided Behavior" will be published in Autumn, 2019 by Weasel Press and Czykmate Press. Leah’s work appears in Blunderbuss, The Spectacle, Outlook Springs, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, and other publications. She was a featured poet at the 2015 New York Poetry Festival, and a runner-up in the 2012 Wergle Flomp humor poetry contest.