What kind of times are these
When to talk about trees is almost a crime
Because it leaves such atrocities unspoken
—Bertolt Brecht
Emma Goldman-Sherman
To Scroll Beyond Belief
According to my feed
we have welcomed
this stuffed puppet
attached to the grill
of a garbage truck
backed up to our door
with its high-pitched alarm
to vacuum-abort our living
children asleep with their joy-
sticks tucked tight.
Didn’t we get the notices?
Did we check the box
at the bottom of the endless scroll—
the screed we didn’t read
invented to dull our senses?
When did we stop
bothering to translate
the tongues of tyranny?
Worn down we’ve drowned
out the sound of the sibilant
air escaping bodies.
We let them tear
our rings from our fingers
our passcodes from our memories
our God from our prayers.
Emma Goldman-Sherman is the author of the chapbook Possible Paths for the Minotaur (Ghost City Press, 2025). Their plays include Abraham’s Daughters, Antigone’s Sister, and Fukt, among others. Goldman-Sherman’s poems have appeared in Third Estate Art, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review, Strange Horizons, The Nature of Our Times, and other journals. A trauma- and Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed coach who works with autistic and other neurodivergent clients, they live in New York City.
Second Coming is a project of Indolent Books, a haven for poets over 50 without a first book and a welcoming space for women, people of color, queer and trans writers, and others who do not fit molds or conform to expectations.
Consider becoming a paid subscriber or making a one-time tax-deductible donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) boutique literary press.
Really nice use of the medium of language to double down on the angst and the anger.