Gibson Fay-LeBlanc

Aubade in 21st Century America

Last night, walking for chocolate-studded

ice cream, we talked about gratitude—

slippery son-of-a-gun—and the mansion—

unwalled—you and I hold in common.

I woke to a text checking if

the four of us are far enough

from a man who shot three machine guns

at many people in multiple towns.

I wrote funs at first—imagine that:

all these white men, desperate, desperate

for eyes ears hands, breathing inside

a role as prophet, avenger, god

instead reload and fire fun over

corner stores and crowds of strangers.

We are far and grateful; we listen into

the grates in us that wind moves through.

Gibson Fay-LeBlanc’s first collection of poems, Death of a Ventriloquist, won the Vassar Miller Prize, and his second, Deke Dangle Dive, was published by CavanKerry in 2021. His poems have appeared in the New Republic, Tin House, Narrative Magazine, and Orion, and he currently serves as Executive Director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

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