by Renée M. Schell
for Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles
What if we all practiced saying no?
What if every street corner
had a microphone
for the practice of saying no?
No, I won’t keep my mouth shut
No, I won’t choose between food and rent
No, I won’t use my body as an ATM to cross a border
The no’s would ring out, streaming
like ribbons up and over each other
weaving an ornate shawl
a handmade rebollo
a silk sari
a second-hand skirt
a torn scarf
They’d hear No in Amarillo
No in the pueblos of Mexico
No in Iowa,
No in the middle of nowhere,
No in County Kerry
No in the Sahara
No in Angola
No in Afghanistan
The microphones would pick
up the tiniest no,
the no of infants,
the no of eight-year-olds,
the no of a mother separated
from her child
at Fort Bliss.
How famous
do you have
to be
for your no
to be
heard?
Renée M. Schell’s debut collection Overtones is forthcoming from Tourane Poetry Press. Her poetry appears in Catamaran Literary Reader, Literary Mama, Naugatuck River Review, and other journals. In 2015 she was lead editor for the anthology (AFTER)life: Poems and Stories of the Dead. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and teaches second grade in a diverse classroom in San Jose, CA.