Originally posted 12/29/2010.
A fancy
pipe bomb
is found unexploded
in a suburban mailbox.
The maker has painted
the cylinder
to resemble a piece
of Zia pottery.
The explosive inside
is potent and unusual,
is wrapped in a coat
of tiny white men made of lead
The ends are packed
with small bits of steel
cut into the shapes
of team mascots.
Attached to the bomb is a note that reads
“Welcome to the continent,”
and a feather from
a peregrine’s tail.
All over the country, people begin to avoid
their mailboxes, staying inside
to read their property deeds,
examining their family trees
for links to cavalry sergeants,
missionaries, traders, storekeepers,
farmers, ranchers, pioneers,
Congressmen, Senators, and Presidents.
Within weeks
more bombs are found.
Not a one ever explodes
but everyone’s afraid to breathe.
The suspects are certainly
hiding in plain sight
right around here somewhere.
The government has banned
casinos and dreamcatchers
and closed the roads to every reservation.
But the bombs keep appearing
in mailboxes, in car trunks,
in closets, on television,
in place names, in foodstuffs,
on the roads, near the rivers,
in the language itself.
Everywhere we look,
in fact,
there could be
a bomb.
Dark Matter 