AFTER READING "MINNESOTA BRIEF: THINK OF THE CHILDREN" BY BREE DONOVAN

by Laurie Rosen

this morning i read this poem 

so sad it feels like a stab 

to my heart i think 

maybe this could move 

the right people…

but the ones who need to be moved 

are heartless with nothing to stab

and empty of any passion 

for reading poetry 

"They Are All Responsible" cartoon by Ann Telnaes

Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poetry has appeared in One Art: a journal of poetry, Gyroscope Review, Oddball Magazine, The New Verse News, Minyan Magazine, The Inquisitive Eater: New School Food, Zig Zag Lit Mag, and elsewhere. Laurie was nominated for a 2025 Pushcart Prize. 

THE DYING BREATH

by Rose Mary Boehm

In a new image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the dying breaths of the star at the heart of the famous Helix Nebula are exposed in wonder and radiance. —Good News Network. Photo: NASA, January 20, 2026

 

"As above, so below," the famous aphorism by a mythical teacher and a mythical text. 

In the Emerald Tablet the ancients already knew about the relationship between the macrocosm and the microcosm. So, as a star dies and we see its dying breath pushing outward like a cloud of seeds to form new stars when their time has come, so the humble dandelion’s delicate umbrella-equipped seeds go with the wind to settle on another meadow and become new dandelions when their time has come, the spiders die soon after producing their egg sacs, and the spiderlings disperse into the world by ballooning: using the breeze and sometimes atmospheric electric fields to travel far, settling, mating, and laying egg sacs when their time has come.

 

"As above, so below"—instead of neurons sending electrical signals through axons, stars use magnetic field lines. Trees connect through the complex mycelia network, and we have more than 86 billion neurons in the brain, and a more or less equal number of other cells. Neurons and neurotransmitters are our mycelia. 

 

When my grandfather died, I saw a small silver cloud leaving his open mouth.

 
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, eight poetry collections and one chapbook, her work has been widely published mostly by US poetry journals. A new full-length poetry collection is forthcoming in 2026.

THINGS YOU CAN DO IN 85 SECONDS

by J.R. Solonche

The Doomsday Clock was set at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest the Clock has ever been to midnight in its history. —Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 27, 2026. Photo: Jamie Christian

Boil a cup of water in a modern microwave.

Tie both shoes with a deliberate, double-knot of human certainty.

 

Empty a small kitchen trash bin and replace the liner before the infinite notices.

Hand-grind enough coffee beans for a single sardonic cup.

 

Take twelve deep breaths, measuring the air as if it were borrowed property.

Wash your hands thoroughly, scrubbing the January salt from your knuckles.

 

Read three short poems by J.R. Solonche.

Write a brief postcard to a neighbor you haven't spoken to in years.

 

Check the mail, auditing the envelopes for clerical errors.

Wind a manual wristwatch, tightening the spring against the global midnight.

Nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, twice for the National Book Award and three times for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of more than 50 books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.

MINNESOTA BRIEF: THINK OF THE CHILDREN

by Bree Donovan

A safeguard document is helping parents prepare in case of ICE arrest and family separation. —CBS News, January 16, 2026.  Click for a video explaining DOPA.

If you cannot see this as an occupation,
but you do wince about the children
(because after all, at heart, you’re kind), please know:
hundreds of adults in Minnesota are training
as DOPAs—meaning “Delegation of Parental
Authority” designees—so in the event children’s parents
are kidnapped and detained who knows where or
deported who knows where, and their children
no longer have mami, hooyo, pa, they do have,
some have, a DOPA. A someone, DOPA, if not papi.
 
If children are your occasional concern, because of course
the children of the hunted could be innocent until proven
guilty, please know: the ones in children’s hospice
(in case you’ve thought of them, yes there are
hospices just for children), each have a nurse,
so far not deported, enfermera, kalkaalisada,
and a DOPA on file in case they die
without their waalidka, their Pa-Moe holding their hand.
 
If children are a now and then concern, pro tip:
a DOPA can be an aunt, npawg, grandfather,
pu, neighbor, pii chai, or attorney. As long
as DOPA papers are signed, the npawg,
neighbor, auntie has the legal right (temporarily
but who actually knows) to decide about schools,
medical care, care in general (will they know
of allergies, asthma, bedwetting, things only parents
know?). Pii chai become waalidka, attorneys-in-fact.
 
If children cross your mind—if—carry on:
parents of disabled children, of children still at home
ages 3 days to 17 years, parents who must keep
working and worry some night as they walk
to their car out the service door they will be taken,
dread this vividly, continuously, while feeding, holding,
tucking in their children, their deepest concern, seeing 
their own abductions play out behind their children’s stories
of dinosaurs and flying tigers and apps and places
where it’s always warm and ice cream is free on trees,
these parents have pre-erased themselves with DOPAs.
DOPAs mean their children, their abiding broken-hearted 
concern, might continue to be cared for somehow for some time.

DOPAs are these parents's last best loving acts. 

So go on, monsters. The children are covered. 

Author's note: The languages here are Spanish, Somali, Karen, Hmong—just some of the languages spoken by kidnapped parents of children in Minnesota.

Bree Donovan is the pseudonym of a St. Paul, Minnesota writer who is active on Signal. A childless adult adoptee, Bree thinks often of the children.

FOR MINNEAPOLIS

by Ruth Lehrer

They don’t tell you in the morning
you will die by noon 
driving in your car
walking on the street 
 
after you are gone
you see a picture of the gun
flesh as good as ashes
blood as good as painted pain 
 
But in that morning you just know
yesterday your neighbor was brave
so today you must be too
The boundary between trust and fear
torn open
 
We are all ash
We are all brave. 

Ruth Lehrer is a sign language interpreter and Pushcart-nominated poet living in western Massachusetts. She is the author of the young adult novel Being Fishkill. 

WHAT WORDS MEAN

by Michael T. Young

Cartoon By Nick Anderson

          For Alex Pretti, Nurse Executed by ICE Agents

 

They say “domestic terrorist.” 

We say “citizen.” 

They say “violent radical.” 

We say “peaceful protestor.” 

They say “he brandished a gun.” 

We say “he had a phone.” 

They say “absolute immunity.” 

We say “first amendment.” 

 

At the end of each sentence a life is at stake. It’s how 

words form in the mouth. Some unfold like a flower 

 

scenting the air with an aroma 

reminding you of a summer day 

when you knew your mother and father 

loved you and time seemed 

endless, full of light and warmth. 

 

But other words form like an ache 

where the bullet entered 

and a pain where it blew out 

the other side, red 

not just with the usual blood, 

but with speech and every other right.

Michael T. Young's fourth collection, Mountain Climbing a River, was just published by Broadstone Books. His third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. His poetry has been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac. It has also appeared in numerous journals including Chiron Review, The Journal of New Jersey Poets, Mid-Atlantic Review, and Vox Populi.

HOW MUCH CAN WE TAKE?

by Lynne Kemen

after viewing “Continuous Form” by Nishimura Yuko (Japan) 2020—washi paper

The paper is impossibly twisted, pleated

like skirts used to be. How is it possible

that this is paper? Nishimura Yuko's washi

folding into itself, holding a shape

it shouldn't hold.

 

On the wall behind, faces

also impossibly shaped, bearing witness,

watching.

 

Tensile strength. The word makes me think

of tension, how it translates to my own body

squirming to get comfortable, no longer able

to hold erect posture. Two total knee replacements.

Back pain. Neck pain. I'm so tired.

 

Pretti is our conscience. One of the helpers

who always shows up, who cares about others,

who refuses to look away. His phone

documenting what shouldn't be happening,

what we need to see.

 

I used to protest the Vietnam war. Kent State

terrified me—that girl kneeling, her mouth open,

screaming over the body. Some photographs

are that raw, that perfectly horrific.

Once I see them, they're in my DNA somehow,

in my body.

 

I can't stand for long periods now.

And I know I cannot look away.

So many do. They don't think it affects them—

until it does.

 

The sculpture before us, still whole.

Those circular faces, still watching.

We know fabric tears.

We just don't know when.

Lynne Kemen is the author of Shoes for Lucy (SCE Press, 2023) and More Than a Handful (Woodland Arts Editions, 2020). Her work has appeared in One Art, The Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, and elsewhere. She received a 2024 Pushcart Prize nomination and serves as Editor/Interviewer for The Blue Mountain Review. She is currently working on two full-length poetry volumes. Lynne lives in rural Delaware County, New York.

OLD AND FAMILIAR

by Dick Altman

A preliminary review by U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s internal watchdog office found that Alex Pretti was shot by two federal officers after resisting arrest, but did not indicate that he brandished a weapon during the encounter, according to an email sent to Congress and reviewed by The New York Times [January 27, 2026].

We were both

ten years old,

and best friends,

the colonel’s

daughter

across the street

and I,

when he said

I think

you’re old enough

to see these

army newsreels,

from my days 

back

in World War II.

 

Down into 

the basement

we went.

Before he turned

out the lights,

we watched

as he took out

a giant reel

of sixteen millimeter

black and white film,

he fitted

to his old army

projector.

 

The two of us

watched in terror,

as people were

dragged from shops

and apartment

buildings,

thrown

to the ground,

and beaten.

With the same

fright in our voices,

we asked

what they

did wrong.

 

The colonel

stopped the film

and turned

on the lights.

What did they

do wrong,

he repeated.

Hitler—

a name

we knew barely

at a distance—

hated Jews,

he said.

The people

pictured here

were Jews.

In that quiet

fatherly tone,

I knew so well,

he looked at me

and said,

you’re Jewish,

aren’t you.

 

The next images,

forever fixed

in my mind,

showed mounds

of dead bodies 

being bulldozed

into trenches,

at what he called

“the camps”.

A vile end,

I later thought,

for a people

doing nothing 

wrong,

but approaching

their god,

in the Fuhrer’s eyes,

from the wrong

testament.

***

I can’t pick up a paper,

or see a newscast,

that doesn’t remind me—

as ICE grabs individuals

off the street,

or wades into crowds

with smoke bombs,

to break up protests—

of those images

the colonel

shared with us,

that day long ago.

 

We were still

too young

to understand

when he told,

how Hitler came

to control the truth

proclaimed 

by print

and radio.

As truth today

seems to reincarnate

with each sunrise,

the colonel’s films

begin to feel

eerily familiar.

Have America’s

once welcome

immigrants,

incarcerated now

at every turn,

I ask myself,

become

yesterday’s

vilified Jews,

our government

more Hitlerian

by the hour?

And more

terrifying?

 

Dick Altman writes in the thin, magical air of Old West’s high desert plains, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in the American Journal of Poetry, Santa Fe Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored over 290 poems, published on four continents.

THE LIVING

by Tina Williams

by Argo at Fine Art America

“Fuck you, fuck you"
he said to the poet 
and nurse 
as sure as he said it 
to the autoworker
shouting “pedophile protector!”
Every day, 
he middle fingers
the command
to clear the streets
one way
or another
but the living
come back.
They arm
themselves
with poster board
and their children’s 
future.
They return
on the shoulders
of the dead. 
They dress
for the cold.

Tina Williams lives in Round Rock, Texas. She wants to be part of the solution.

THE HANDOVER

by Lonnie Buerge

After a Border Patrol agent killed Alex Pretti, Attorney General Pam Bondi tells Minnesota to hand over its voter roll to “bring an end to the chaos.” —Mother Jones, January 27, 2026

Hand over the lists

they say.

Hand over the lists

of the people 

who vote.

Hand them over.

We just want to help.

We just want to be of service

to democracy.

Hand over the lists

and we will leave you alone,

get off your necks,

quit murdering your people,

you can stay safe.

Just hand over the lists.

Just hand them over.

Give them up.

Give them.

Give.

Give them to us.

Keep yourself safe,

Hand them over.

The trains are waiting.

Lonnie Buerge is old in chronology but young in poetry. He has spent the bulk of his career and accounting in the petroleum industry but has enjoyed reading and writing poetry intensely for the past 14 years. He is involved in coordinating the Ginny Soldner Poetry Collaborative in Aspen, CO. He is, unfortunately, not much published.

VERONIKA

by Frank Conahan

Scientists have been forced to rethink the intelligence of cattle after an Austrian cow named Veronika displayed an impressive—and until now undocumented—knack for tool use. Photo: Veronika scratching her back with a stick. Photographer: Antonio J Osuna Mascaró —The Guardian, January 19, 2026

I was reading that

A cow in Austria is

Using a stick to

Scratch various parts of her

Body. She holds it

Differently in her mouth to

Reach her itchy parts. 

This is news because she's not

A chimp. They do stuff

Like this all the time, it seems. 

Animals who have

Intelligence of different 

Degrees use tools with

Different sophistication. 

Dogs and cats play with

Toys, slippers, sticks, and corpses.

Ravens manipulate

Stones. Chimps employ weaponry.

Why are we surprised?

Intelligent animals 

Use tools, look at us.

We're practically destroying 

The planet with ours.

(Intelligence is... complex.)

I hope the cow is

Enjoying celebrity.

She could be dinner soon.

Frank Conahan lives in reclusive retirement outside of Baltimore, Maryland. He follows current events with trepidation and copes by writing verse. He has recently published poems with Bards of Maryland. His collection Nothing Is Coming will be published this spring.

NOT ICE

by Erin Murphy

Homeland Security officials have urged disaster response staff at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to avoid using the word “ice” in public messaging about the massive winter storm barreling toward much of the United States... The concern is that the word could spark confusion or online mockery, given the ongoing controversy surrounding US Immigration and Customs Enforcement—also known as “ICE.” —CNN, January 24, 2026

It’s frozen water—not ice.

We have mouses not mice.

Say two times, not twice.

 

Your kid’s hair may be lousy

but it’s not crawling with lice.

Predators lure but do not entice.

 

Even the city in France

must change its spelling

to Niece instead of Nice

 

which looks like nice.

Casinos don’t use dice—

from now on, the plural

 

of die is dies. Take your

chances at the craps table,

on the sidewalk, in your

 

own car or home. Believe

what they say you saw

with your own eyes.

Erin Murphy’s latest books are Human Resources and Fluent in Blue, winner of the 2025 American Book Fest Best Book Award in Poetry.