JeFF Stumpo

Prepper

I plant heirlooms and perennials:
tomatoes, whose seeds promise perpetuity,
and their companions, the marigolds,
antiparasitics like cilantro
for post-war salsa.

I plant witch hazel because some day
the toothbrushes will run out
and you can clean your teeth with the twigs.

I sterilize 500 Mason jars
and get a vasectomy.

I order chickens and ducks and pigs and goats
and a book on Hannibal
and an elephant.

I begin building a barn for the chickens
and the ducks and the pigs and the goats
and a battle howdah for the elephant,
draw up plans to conquer the neighbors' yards,
but I do not covet
because that’s a sin.

I buy guns and duck tape and duck tape
my guns together,
rig the triggers with string.
I Rube Goldberg my guns and Home Alone my house.
I repeat to myself
I am not the mouse
but the mouse trap.
I am not the mouse
but the mouse trap.

I laminate the pages of the book on Hannibal.

I laminate the tomato seeds.

I laminate the chickens and the ducks and the pigs and the goats
and the elephant,
the lonely home I call Mouse Trap,
and my sin.

I laminate the gun in my hand and my hand
and my arm and my teeth and my vasectomied self.

I am the hermetic seal and the book of war.

I am certain I will regrow forever.

Whatever lies beyond these walls,
I am ready

they say to rush the shooter while he’s reloading

God made men, but Mr. Colt made them equal, or something
like that is how the saying goes, and I’m saying blessed
are the peacemakers, I’m saying the kid
who stopped picking on me first later dyed his hair purple
and joined a band, I’m saying our dog Stubby and I
fended off dogs that attacked him and me and Apple and my wife
in a state park and I did not shoot them, I am saying
I wrote a letter to the editor when a woman in a store
in Martin, TN told her son that pink was a girl color,
I am saying these things because I say things because I try
very hard to solve problems instead of killing them dead,
because I am not fundamentally brave, I just have my back
to the wall, because I am not going to make it through
the apocalypse but I will go out with my integrity intact,
no perfect specimen, no survivalist, I am not, in the end,
better than you despite stopping to right an upended beetle,
I’m no big man waiting for the bullets to run out,
I just know that before I return to dust I am running
towards the fire with as much water as I can carry

JeFF Stumpo’s debut full-length collection, these are the waterfalls in my head, was awarded the 2026 Granite State Poetry Prize by Diannely Antigua and published by Yas Press (University of New Hampshire). His poetry and prose have recently appeared or are forthcoming in places including Prairie Schooner, Rattle, Pinch, and HAD. His wife is the smart one. His son is fantabulous. He has a (poor) website at www.JeFFStumpo.com.

Banner Art:
Photo by Tao Yuan, Unsplash, 2023

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