Traitors

by Nate Pritts

My friends & I walk a thin line between universal adulation
& scoffing disinterest. It only takes one wrong move

to turn the crowd against us. This bright morning,
picketing my house: one hundred thousand angry faces

holding up signs naming me traitor. But I never avowed belief
in any cause at all! I called my friends & the situation

was the same in each instance. Our plan was to cross
the curved crimson bridge in the small hours before dawn,

board a rocket & head to the moon. But we imagined
we’d offend the moon rocks. So we thought, collectively,

to steer clear of everything. I’ve committed no action,
spoken no word, in almost two months. My slate is almost clean.


Nate Pritts took his BS at SUNY Brockport, his MFA from Warren Wilson College and his Ph.D. from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Currently, he teaches at the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts, a residential high school for gifted students,& at Northwestern State University. His poems have recently appeared in Rattle, Cimarron Review, Solo, Dogwood and 5am.

Nate Pritts was nominated for Poets Under 30 by the storySouth editors.

poem from JUST US FRIENDS