We have to make it

5/18/25

It feels like August
will wound everyone,
that the courts

will fold completely,
those executions
will continue to rise

that my thirst
will change a third time
& the moaning

of an army of goats
will be called music
in a terrified silence.

It’s not helpful
to think of doom
in three months.

We have to make it
to August first.
We have to make it.

Darren C Demaree’s poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear in numerous magazines and journals, including Hotel Amerika, Diode, North American Review, New Letters, Diagram, and Colorado Review. Darren is the author of twenty-three poetry collections, most recently So Much More (November 2024, Harbor Editions). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. Darren lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.