Swept Away

My fingernails dig into pavement’s end,
a void opening beneath me.

Columbus lied. The world is flat.
The Mayflower barely made it.

The illusions we live in fade
as the planet tilts under the seismic shift
of our country at war in these new
brother fighting brother lines
criss-crossing the sand.

Red baseball hats fly past me,
email servers, the Lincoln Monument
Identical white crosses, pages
from Martin’s not yet come true dream.

If the terrorists slide off next,
along with weapons
of mass destruction, the Tea Party,
child molesters, and rapists, will
Adam have one more chance
to not bite that apple, I wonder,
before I’m swept away, too.

The poems of Pris Campbell have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including PoetsArtists, Rusty Truck, Bicycle Review, Chiron Review, and Outlaw Poetry Network. The Small Press has published eight collections of her poetry and Clemson University Press a collaboration with Scott Owens. When The Wolves Come After You, with Michael Parker, from Goss Publications and Squalls on the Horizon, a book of tanka, from Nixes Mate are her most recent small press books. A former Clinical Psychologist, sailor and bicyclist until sidelined by ME/CFS in 1990, she makes her home in the Greater West Palm Beach, Florida, with her husband.