Second Coming No. 425 — March 20, 2026
A poem-a-day protest against the threat posed to our democracy by Donald Trump and his fascist regime
Shelby Snyder
Witness
We watch it in 4K, live-
stream it on TikTok
or Instagram or Twitter,
clicking through the cruelty:
the view from the icy side-
walk, the donut shop across
the street, the neighbor’s tear-
gassed SUV. Forward and
backward and forward
and backward and backward
and backward and back
to the breaking news:
Another innocent individual
brutally shot in broad daylight.
The angle shifts, but the shape
of violence never changes.
A nurse. A mother and poet.
Fiction would be less heavy-
handed. Do your hands feel
heavy, too, scrolling through
all this casual death? Let me hold
yours for a moment. Remind us
we are human.
Shelby Snyder’s poems have appeared in Tobeco Literary & Arts Journal. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Chatham University in Pittsburgh. A singer, actor, and songwriter, Shelby lives in central Pennsylvania.
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Wonderfully skillful and meaningful poem.
Very powerful. Thank you.