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| 400 Rounds of Ammunition Found at Pawnshop Connected to N.J. Killings: The police arrested the owner of the store in Keyport, N.J., on criminal weapons charges. [Their search] on Friday night … yielded six rifles, three handguns and one shotgun, in addition to the ammunition rounds, including hollow point bullets, which expand when they hit a target, according to officials. Three of the weapons were AR-15 style assault rifles, the same type of firearm used in the Sandy Hook, Las Vegas and Parkland mass shootings. —The New York Times, December 15, 2019 |
When the news buzzed on my phone:
6 Dead in Jersey City. Jewish Kosher Deli,
I was googling, searching for a prayer
to read Friday night at our yearly service
to remember the dead at Sandy Hook
with an invited speaker
who would tell our congregation
how little progress has been made
since those babies were gunned down
with the same kind of rifles
carried inside a kosher market
at the very moment I was searching
for a prayer, not too political
to read from the pulpit
at a service organized to keep
the memory of innocents alive.
Jacqueline Jules is the author of the poetry chapbooks Field Trip to the Museum, Stronger Than Cleopatra, and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her work has appeared in over 100 publications including TheNewVerse.News, The Rising Phoenix Review, What Rough Beast, Public Pool, Rise Up Review and Gargoyle. She lives in Arlington, Virginia.
