Rick Doyle

horseradish to mustard
turnip to maple syrup

Dutchman’s breeches to hawkweed
a ditch full of asters to a field of daisies

head of tide to estuary
tomorrow’s eclipse to last year’s comet

a broken promise to a broken-backed threat
a heartfelt obscenity to a misleading song
a bitter truth to a brass-belled anthem

a feathered doubt to a copper certainty
a zealous uncertainty to a willful faith
a shattered faith to a chrome-plated doubt.

Rick Doyle, poet and playwright, practices law in Downeast Maine. His poetry has been published in numerous journals, including Kaleidotropeand The Cafe Review, and won a SpiritWord Honors Award from the Maine Poetries Collective. His one-act play, Regalia, was selected as a winner in the Maine Playwrights Contest and presented in readings at Acorn School of Performing Arts, Stonington Opera House, and elsewhere. He has recently completed Regina Snowdeal, a full-length play exploring the efforts of a survivor of domestic violence to reunite with her son after he has been removed from her home by the state.

This poem was first published online in A Parallel Uni-verse and later
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.