I was once a bomb target too—
My mail scanned & splayed
Open.
When my little ones, shuffling
Their pajama feet to
Open
The door, I body blocked.
Christmas gifts sent
Opened
By a man in a bomb suit.
My colleague
Opened
A package in his kitchen.
I was next they said, an
Open
Threat, unknown bomber.
I built a box of rebar, cement,
Barbed wire and broken bottles
Closed
The door while CNN packaged theories
And a professor’s hand
Opened
Into a bloody bloom.
Surprising this Pandora’s box
Opening
Just before the polls
Open.
Poet’s Note: I was deemed a potential target of the Unabomber from late 1994 until he was apprehended in April, 1996.
READ MORE
Pipe bombs target Democrats, CNN as political tensions mount [AP News]
Pipe bomb scare reveals Trump’s uneasy embrace of the presidency [CNN]
‘I ain’t scared’: California Democrat Maxine Waters says after being target of suspicious packages [CNN]
Heidi Seaborn started writing in 2016. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Nimrod, Penn Review, Yemassee Journal, American Journal of Poetry. She’s the 2018 Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize winner and finalist for the 2018 International Literary Awards Rita Dove Award in Poetry, Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, 2017 Patricia Dobler Poetry Award and Lauren K. Alleyne Difficult Fruit Poetry Prize. The Seattle-based poet is a New York University MFA candidate, graduate of Stanford University and on The Adroit Journal staff.
Image by Michael Hebert of pipe bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc’s van.
