by Zebulon Huset
My freshmen students start Fahrenheit 451 next week—
today a Tennessee pastor lights back into the old chestnut
of Harry Potter infecting children with witchcraft or Twilight
spreading the cheesy demons of vampiric thoughts. Roiling
on the self-righteous fury of the Neo-Nazi echo chamber
that rebounds cacophonous insecurities and fear like
the crystals that create a great fortress of solitude. Riled
up by the downfall of monuments raised by Daughters
of the Confederacy, by schools teaching history
that covers even half of the truth about their great
grandparents, by the ricocheting of rage. Opposite
of a sensory deprivation tank that saps sounds
and light and leaves one with just the mortal drumbeat,
overwhelming sound of blood pulsing through ear-arteries.
The realization that self is both loud and fragile,
that our brittle hold on life can crumble at any moment
and it’s not witchcraft or the past that are frothing
at the doorway of extremism, but the hand grasping
the bulk-purchased bottle of lighter fluid, the voice
booming from their own mouths, the fire lapping
their stubby little fingertips.
Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer. He won the Gulf Stream 2020 Summer Poetry Contest and his writing has appeared in Best New Poets, Rattle, Texas Review, North American Review, Meridian, The Southern Review, Fence, and many others. He publishes the prompt blog Notebooking Daily, and edits the journals Coastal Shelf and Sparked.