<\/p>\n
Once a man with a gun tucked<\/span> *<\/span><\/p>\n I was steps from the door when my phone<\/span> *<\/span><\/p>\n There’s a mountain in Hawaii I liked to hike, the teal<\/span> *<\/span><\/p>\n Houston. Miami. Dayton. Boston. Sandy Hook.<\/span> <\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Courtney LeBlanc is the author of\u00a0Beautiful & Full of Monsters\u00a0<\/i>(forthcoming from\u00a0Vegetarian Alcoholic Press<\/i>), chapbooks\u00a0All in the Family<\/i>\u00a0(Bottlecap Press<\/i>) and\u00a0The Violence Within\u00a0<\/i>(Flutter Press<\/i>), a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a finalist in the Furious Gazelle Spring 2019 Writing Contest. She has her MBA from University of Baltimore and her MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. She loves nail polish, wine, and tattoos. Read her publications on her blog:\u00a0www.wordperv.com<\/a>. Follow her on twitter:\u00a0@wordperv<\/a>, and IG:\u00a0@wordperv79<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once a man with a gun tucked into a side holster walked by my table. I was eating brunch, was mid-sip of my mimosa. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Weekly Feature | Another Day in America, a poem by Courtney LeBlanc\n","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,167,213,254],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-feature","category-gun-violence","category-poetry","category-united-states"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/181015_124815_1.jpg?fit=800%2C420&ssl=1","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3201"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3990,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201\/revisions\/3990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ninto a side holster walked by<\/span>
\nmy table. I was eating brunch,<\/span>
\nwas mid-sip of my mimosa.<\/span>
\nQuiche doesn’t require a 9mm.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nrang for the third time. I finally answered<\/span>
\nbut my boss cut me off, Stay away<\/em>,<\/span>
\nthere’s a shooter<\/em>. I spent the day glued<\/span>
\nto the TV as colleagues were gunned down.<\/span>
\nWhen we were allowed to return to work<\/span>
\nthey brought in grief counselors. I screamed<\/span>
\nat her, There’s nowhere safe!<\/em> She said nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nocean crushing the sand in a passionate embrace<\/span>
\nfrom my high viewpoint. Next to the trail, a gun<\/span>
\nrange. The first time I heard the crack of a shot<\/span>
\nI dropped to the ground, curled my body<\/span>
\ninto a tight comma.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n55 dead. 13 dead. 9 dead. 48 dead. The city<\/span>
\nchanges, the number changes, nothing<\/span>
\nelse changes.<\/span><\/p>\nimage source<\/a><\/h6>\n