Merril D. Smith

1.

The rot from within festers,
the room reeks,

the lies bloom like corpse flowers,
the stench overwhelming–
it’s the new perfume.

Three men in that oval chamber,
only one is a leader,

and I am ashamed.

2.

But—

in the darkness, we open
our eyes, whisper
poetry, till we become
ferocious–

motherswill defend their young,
their young will growl and rise
with spring grass, will march
with ghosts beside them, an army—

remember the beauty,
the red sky of morning,
the coming storm

Merril D. Smith is an independent scholar and Pushcart-nominated poet. She writes from southern New Jersey. Her work has been published widely in poetry journals and anthologies. Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts (Nightingale & Sparrow Press), was Black Bough Poetry’s December 2022 Book of the Month. Find her at Bluesky: @merrildsmith.bsky.social; Instagram: mdsmithnj; Blog: merrildsmith.org

This poem appeared in Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age — Summer 2025, published by The Chaos Section Poetry Project. We’ll be featuring each poem from the collection individually in the weeks ahead. You can read the full collection or download a free PDF of the chapbook here.