My children wake, afraid, while down the street fireworks sound off like rounds of ammunition. I read that, a few fourth of July’s ago, a neighbor shot his firearm into the air and the bullet lodged into his daughter’s brain. What goes up. I have a million trite expressions to ward away fear, when what we need is a direct address. I don’t understand, my youngest panics, because we have given hate a talisman. I start to sell off our belongings, as exit strategy, and take residence in the temporary lodging of it’s always darkest before the dawn and be calm and carry on—these words must exist for a reason. A coffee mug strategy to life. Stop, drop, and roll. Hotline numbers are shared across my screen. I’m here. Hello. I burn the edges of paintings that confine each shape, hold the charred pieces in my hands. I hear my mother say, build it in a place they can never reach. I border my children’s speech into the confines of our home. Say what you want in your mind, I teach them, lying. Knowing even that’s not safe. A bullet can still find you there and look a lot like a celebration.
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Megan Merchant (she/her) is the owner of Shiver Song and holds an M.F.A. degree from UNLV. She is a visual artist and the author of three full-length poetry collections with Glass Lyre Press, four chapbooks, and a children’s book. Her book, Before the Fevered Snow, was released in April 2020 with Stillhouse Press (NYT New & Noteworthy). She was awarded the 2016-2017 COG Literary Award, the 2018 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize, the Inaugural Michelle Boisseau Prize, was a finalist in the 2024 Montreal International Poetry Prize, and won the New American Poetry Prize. She is the Editor of Pirene’s Fountain.
