by Sally Mills
Content warning: misogynist slur
Thousands of public servants are living, working and, in the final weeks of election season, campaigning in a state of fear. And it’s getting worse... —The New York Times, October 11, 2026
Think about it: all those delicate lace men out
there, parking the loaner, salting
the eggs, pumping the gas, outrage compact as
a rapist’s face inside a foot of pantyhose. When
will one of them decide to
strike the match?
I thought one might this time. I was
a county delegate. I did what a
county delegate is supposed to do: I
posted about it. I am a delegate. I am voting
for this one, and so should you. Later,
his Facebook message landed: We’re coming
to get you,
cunt.
He was able to find me because
we were both members of
Maine Aurora Borealis Watch.
Nearly all of the time, I feel lucky. The way Charlie Kirk must
have felt before heading off
to that university that day, or Melissa Hortman before
she answered her front door that day, or her husband, or
their dog. I don’t think about it. Except
what is the neighbor’s dog barking
at? And those knots in the pine boards—are they
really knots? Or
peepholes or
target holes? Should I answer
that phone?
They’re coming to get you,
cunt.
Sally Mills is a poet and attorney from Downeast Maine. She holds an MPhil on the work of Anna Akhmatova. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including The New Verse News, The Main Street Rag, Sheila-Na-Gig, Rat’s Ass Review, The Esthetic Apostle, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, and The RavensPerch. When not writing poetry or practicing law, Sally performs with The Damn, Girls!—Hancock County’s premier country-western girl band.