by Jan Steckel
for Garrett Murphy
Late October is the New November,
the nova ember, when all slates
are made new. Ladybug, ladybug,
fly away home, your statehouse is on fire.
If you can’t vote the bastards out,
drag along your electoral hammers,
spousal skull-crushers. Surveil those
ballot boxes through the sights
of your AR13s, only wear masks
when you’re Ku Klux Klanning.
Proud Boys will be bashers.
It’s the ballot-harvesting festival,
so let’s go smashing pumpkins.
MAGA MAGA make it rain, it’s
lefty-hunting season again.
Kristallnacht’s in fashie-fashion.
Jack-o-Lannister, slide down
the Capitol bannister.
Olly olly oxen free!
Open season/no more reason:
civil discourse is passé,
democracy’s so yesterday.
Grab your billyclubs, shillaleghs,
flagpoles, sheriff’s star,
little red baseball cap.
It’s mass grave o’clock, wake up,
smell the decomposing bodies.
Get up off your brass knuckles—
Let the midterms begin!
Jan Steckel’s book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, 2018) won Rainbow Awards for LGBT Poetry and Best Bisexual Book. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. She lives in Oakland, California.