OBJECTIONABLE SUSTAIN

by Scott Keeney

Judge, it’s hard to remain calm and measured
and I’m not even alone in a room with you,
not even a teenage girl, not even a woman
of today looking out at a landscape of tattered gowns
and heels in the trees and slips on the wires,
listening to the clamor of countless voices
that might as well be the silence
of the countless others, hum and burn.
It’s hard to remain calm and measured
even without a hand over my mouth
and another groping the smooth hellacious
curves of my salacious details
until I want to throw up, and maybe do a little
in my mouth under your hand
and under the snickering in my ear
under the echoing snicker of your friend,
until I want to vomit the musculature
of an entire culture of pretty domination.
Judge, you have made a mockery of us
who stood all night in a drunk girl’s room,
who got in maybe half a kiss
before realizing she was about to pass out
and so eased her down on her bed
without so much as copping a feel
and watched out her window
and stood by her door other men had entered before,
and wondered if we were a chump, a loser,
an impossible man, missing our chance
for what, the anonymous no-glory
of doing the right thing? And it’s not
that we should be judged by what we did
in high school, I liked beer
so much I drove my mother’s car
into the broad side of the Public Works garage,
but we shouldn’t misrepresent ourselves
before congress, before the people, and that
shouldn’t be a thing that needs pointing out,
and we shouldn’t forget that to be Supreme Court Justice
is not a right but a privilege and any
who would hold that position should be above
causing consternation and palpitations,
agita and outrage to a huge swath
of our population. It’s October 8th,
the Monday after your unholy confirmation
and a mosquito lands on my hand
as I type this. Judge, should I squash it like a bitch
who’s confused about the past?
Karie at work emailed me today to say
she was leaving the office early, too much talk
about how could this happen, how could women
vote that way? She couldn’t concentrate,
was shaking inside. I don’t know when
she’ll return. It’s enough to almost make you
forget there are still kids in cages, separated
from parents sent who knows where, for
the crime of impatiently wanting
nothing more than a better life, wanting just
to survive. Unconquerable violence.
Do you know what it’s like just to want to
survive? My teenage daughter rages every day
that we have a sexual assault artist
in the oval office, and now that artless force
of capitalist nature, with his congenital
shell games and compound interest, has his
justice. The Liar in Chief and his Liar in the Court
blaming the blameless, shaming the shamed
who should not have been shamed, but who always
are. Liar in the court. Liar in the court.
Bang, gavel, bang! Liar in the court!
Go sit well in your seat in your death-colored robe.
Go ahead and adjudicate the defiling of Democracy
with your green hand over her mouth.
Go, you Strawman, go and judge.
Go bury your past, you Executioner of Justice,
you sword in the hand of the Galahad of doublespeak
in this land of liberty and whatnot for all.

Scott Keeney has published four collections of poetry, most recently Pickpocket Poetica. His works have appeared previously at TheNewVerse.News (here and here) as well as in Columbia Poetry Review, Failbetter, Mudlark, New York Quarterly, Poetry East, and other journals.

HOLD HER DOWN, SHUT HER UP

by Kathleen A. Lawrence



She put her cold hand over my mouth,
she whispered hotly in my ear
a wet warning, “don’t talk about it.”
She ordered me to keep his secret,
their secrets become our secrets,
their sins we own, if we share what should
be buried, for country, and for tradition.
Silence is your patriotic virtue,
your civic duty to keep it to yourself.
Swallow the pain, spare us your burden.
“Shhh!” she blew with heavy, minty breath
in my face like a school librarian
who didn’t like her job, she glared
at me with the eyes of a water moccasin,
never blinking, she repeated her threat
to everything good I had ever known,
every future I had ever dreamed,
she swatted away my annoying truths,
she laughed uproariously at my viridity,
innocence, naivety, and guilelessness,
and pelted me with any other Ivy League
language she could spit and spatter
my way. To intimidate me, she put all
her boozy weight on top of me,
covering me like a wool blanket
at a rainy homecoming game,
she left me raw, itchy, confused
and unsure I’d ever get rid of the need
to scratch, to tell, to scream out
spilling her secrets, their secrets,
that kept them standing on marble,
speaking under alabaster columns,
holding conferences to tell their stories.
She held me down, like a pile-up
on the playground when you couldn’t see,
or breathe, or scream, but you knew
you knew them just the same. You
knew his face, like you knew
your own sweat, and stomach ache,
and migraine, and fear of the dark.
Leaning on me she excused herself,
her own participation, she spoke kindly
of her own parents, old like mine,
but obviously not as important.
She stood without empathy while keeping
me locked in another room upstairs,
over and over, blaming me and my sisters,
aunts, friends, little girls not yet able to speak,
and anyone who spoke, tried to speak.
But I was muffled, suffocating with her thick
deference to men. She gulped water
for fuel and fury and shouted of her anger.
She looked down with a whiff of pity
and smarminess, high with condescension,
drunk with power, unhinged with desire
to overpower me and feeling superior
from the artificial height of her leather pumps.
She wished I was still, quiet, subdued,
still asleep in my tower. But I am awake.
Locked in a bathroom, at a party,
dragged into a bush, cornered in a bar,
shoved into the backseat, and I scream
without sound. She covered her ears
to my words, her eyes to my struggling,
and uses her mouth instead to tell his lies
and to keep me the liar. She was not rumpled,
her manicured hands washed with rose hips.
She proudly marked the date with Sharpee
on her calendar with a gold star for her ability
to twist, conquer, silence, strip, and grope
the truth all without a wrinkle, smudge or tear
to her well-pressed suit. Like the cunning asp
slithering down the flag pole she has silenced me,
before the stars and stripes and Alexander
and Anita. She has humiliated me, and hissed
a reminder of what will happen to anyone else
who tries to get away with the truth.


Author’s Note: This piece was written as a reaction to the extensive news coverage of Senator Susan Collins delivering her lengthy, self-indulgent, speech to provide explication and some might say excuses for her decision to vote in support of Kavanaugh's acceptance to the Supreme Court. Her desperate rhetoric tried to explain the irony of her assertion that she, like many of her Republican colleagues thought Dr. Blasey Ford's testimony was wholly believable and 'compelling' however, she still didn't believe her testimony or find it reason enough to stall her approval. Many of the senators said they thought something must have happened to the 'nice lady' they just don't think it involved Kavanaugh and that she must be 'mixed up.' They were quick to add that while they were impressed with what seemed to be her 'truthful' testimony they think the whole situation is a case of mistaken identity. Some questioned her ability to recall all the details, and T**mp even mocked her about this. The way she's been treated is despicable and more classic, blaming the victim, or assaulting the assaulted. This poem tries to get at the idea that Collins was telling another woman to keep her mouth shut. In my opinion, she has joined the enablers. She tells Blasey Ford and millions of other women and girls and yes, some men and boys to keep quiet. Like the mother who calls her daughter a liar, for accusing her step-dad of assault and warns her that they could lose everything if she tells anyone, the message is clear. That no one will believe her. I tried to use the details of Dr. Ford's description of the assault she endured as well as some of the other details of other women giving testimony across the country this week interwoven with the assault on the truth.

Kathleen A. Lawrence was born in Rochester—home of the Garbage Plate, Kodachrome, and Cab Calloway. She has been an educator for over 35 years, teaching Communication, Popular Culture, and Gender Studies at SUNY Cortland. She started writing poetry two years ago and her favorite challenge is the spiraling abecedarian. She has had poems appear in Rattle online for Poets Respond®, Scryptic, Eye to the Telescope, Parody Magazine, and Inigo Online Magazine. She's had poems nominated for the Rhysling Award and twice for the "Best of the Net" award. Her poem "Just Rosie" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

THE DEED IS DONE

by Marsha Owens

Cartoon by Michael de Adder @deAdder

            October 6, 2018
            lying Supreme Court Justice confirmed


I have no tears
maybe music for solace. . .
my cat sings soft melodies
moments click by on the clock
the wine cork pops
and I settle, watch

evening fold its cloak
around trees dropping leaves
the sun drops into its night
place beside those who can cry

and the anger, the anger
roils like hot oil

tap it down, tap it down!
stay calm! vote! be strong!

Being strong sucks . . .
We’ve been strong for centuries
We’ve marched for decades
We’ve kept silent because
            (“it’s a man’s world” my mother said)
We’ve raised daughters
We’ve raised sons
We’ve raised husbands
We’ve cried into pillows at night
We’ve put one foot in front of the other
We’ve organized
We’ve been in therapy
We’ve cashed inferior paychecks
We’ve walked in the dark with fear
We’ve birthed babies
hoping . . .

WE. ARE. TIRED.

My dear women friends . . . sleep.
Find peace and quiet.
It’s been a long day.



Marsha Owens writes to understand. Her poems and essays have appeared at The Literary Nest, TheNewVerse.News, The Huffington Post, thewildword, Rat’s Ass Review, Streetlight Magazine, the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, among others. She lives in Richmond, VA, not far from the peaceful Chesapeake Bay.

THE STAIRS, THE BED, THE LAUGHTER

by Jennifer Davis Michael

Drawing by Ann Telnaes, The Washington Post, December 5, 2017 

The stairs, the bed, the laughter,
the hand over her mouth.
The silence that came after
the stairs, the bed, the laughter;
the faces that looked past her.
The mockery, the doubt.
The stairs, the bed, the laughter.
Fifty hands over her mouth.

Jennifer Davis Michael is Professor and Chair of English at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. Her work has appeared in a number of journals, including Mezzo Cammin, Southern Poetry Review, Turtle Island Quarterly, Leaping Clear, and previously in TheNewVerse.News.

CIRCUS

by Nicole Caruso Garcia

Simpler times by Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune, UT 

For Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 27 September 2018


“We can't allow more time for new smears to damage Judge Kavanaugh, his family, his reputation, the reputation of the court, and of course, the reputation of the country…. it's time to end the circus.” —Senator Orrin Hatch (R) Utah


That’s what they heckle when a woman dares
To place her head inside the lion’s chops.           
(Drumroll…there are so few volunteers.)
You gird yourself and leap through flaming hoops

Of memory. As did Anita Hill,
You helmet-up and light the cannon’s fuse.
You swan dive, pray there’s water in the pail,
Become a Tattooed Lady inked in news.       

The men who pound the tent-stakes shake the high wire.
One-piece swimsuit, terrified, you list
Details: two guys, locked door, tunes loud, cries dire,
His hand upon your mouth. You don’t resist

But willingly subject yourself to groping
Questions. This appointment is for life.
Fifteen, you palmed no key but luck, escaping
His drunken weight as water filled the safe.

You’re poised, hang by your hair and strength of jaw.
The big cats roar. One sniffs he’ll never quit.
Your risk respects the gravity of law,
And cold hard truth is not so soft a net.

The crowd goes home. The clowns and beasts will slumber.
You still can hear two crude young men, their laughter.

Nicole Caruso Garcia is Assistant Poetry Editor of Able Muse and a Board member of Poetry by the Sea: A Global Conference. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in RHINO, Measure, PANK, Mezzo Cammin, Crab Orchard Review, Light, Modern Haiku, The Orchards, The Raintown Review, Antiphon, and elsewhere. She resides in Connecticut.

A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING COWARDICE

by Pamela Sumners

Daughter, bear the slights of the petty with grace
and aplomb.  The porcelain smile on your face
will write of itself the pretty words
they’ll choose for your tomb, recording
that you chose your battles well.
The rest can fight it out in hell.

My lesson is let plebe and patrician alone.
There’s no sport in baiting the very dumb,
and you’ll never beat either for influencing
the tilt of the world tilting at windmills—
The stupid are beyond convincing,
and the rich won’t roll away your stone.

Mind the manner, not the honor of your word.
Ungreased candor only blunts the sword.
And courage was made for the cupboard.
This world, if no mild place, is the hoard
of the meek.  Shh, my girl, don’t speak.

Mind your pusillanimous p’s, querulous cues.
The world builds altars to the timorous
who are generous in their alliances,
who have the temerity to putsch defiance
and study popularity as a science.
Bite on verity as you would a bullet
at an amputation without ether
and every polarity of man’s universe
will verily reverse God’s curse
and laud your jocularity.

The meek earned their own beatitude,
won an earth unscorched by thoughts either
deep or divisible, whose worth
is wreaked out in platitudes.
Apocalypse alone is birthed by temper.
Our creation is just a whine and whimper.
Stepchild Truth is no Big Bang, just a birthing
pang orphaned by jackboot ingratitude.

Voltaire knew the law of gratuities we ply:
Live long enough to enrage the actuaries
calculating your annuities.  Me,
I’d vouch for the mealy-mouthed backroom
schemer who perches where opportunism knocks,
flattering the acuity of his sense-shorn flocks.
Don’t slouch!  Lurch!  Pluck out the eye
too discerning.  By all means be of use—
a churched diplomat, and, if must be, obtuse.
The strong man may covet your ox or your ass,
but it’s the dullard sheep who reaps the grass.



Author’s Note: I wanted to say a word to the mufflers of women who want them to be ornamental and compliant. That has been much on display of late.


Pamela Sumners is a constitutional and civil rights lawyer who has glared at Roy Moore, Jay Sekulow, Bill Pryor, and various Alabama governors across courtrooms. She also was the longest-serving executive director of Missouri's NARAL affiliate and has litigated numerous sexual harassment and discrimination cases. She now lives in St. Louis with her wife, teenage son, and three dogs who watch crime shows and sleep all day.

ADVICE FROM THE PATRIARCHY

by Howard Winn

Original cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon

Be a good girl and leave things as they are
since that arrangement has worked well
for us over the ages as we found
power and satisfaction with the way
issues have operated to our advantage
and questioning only gets in our way
you may cry a little when the time
seems appropriate but not kicking or
screaming that would be disturbing
and shift the attention to any ill treatment
you may see and feel for the way
we run the society has worked for us
and you ladies or girls should step aside
or submit when we desire it and your
feelings or even intellect is secondary
to our feelings of seniority and grandeur
even our misplaced anger is part of the
way we have built our sense of superiority
and supremacy which must not be
questioned in this patriarchy we have
fashioned over time and generations
to our benefit and personal profit

Howard Winn's novel Acropolis is published by Propertius Press. He has poems in the Pennsylvania Literary Journal and in Evening Street Magazine.

GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE ENJOYMENT

by Diane Elayne Dees

Click here to see original tweet.

So many things we could be doing—
watching movies, walking dogs,
playing with kids, lying on the beach,
having coffee with friends, playing tennis
on Saturday, relaxing at a jazz club.
But none of these can compare
with remembering, reliving, retelling:
the hug turned sinister, the doctored
drink, the sound of fabric being ripped,
the feel of bruising hands on shoulders,
the sound of laughter, the vomit-inducing
kiss, the heavy breathing, noxious sweat,
the brutal violation so powerful—
our neurology may never be the same.
The pleasure center of the female brain
lights up with every opportunity to beg
a powerful man to listen, to understand,
to maybe—one day—actually give a damn.

Diane Elayne Dees’s poems have been published in many journals and anthologies. Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that covers women’s professional tennis throughout the world.

2018

by Ashley Green

Let’s talk about it.


Twelve and
the twenty-year-old touching
the back of your leg
where the shorts ended and your thigh began.

Thirteen and
the stucco pulling hair
from the back of your head and scraping
the backs of your arms
as his eighteen-year-old body
crushed you and
his hands pushed your legs open. 


Sixteen and
your classmate crawling
up your dazed, drunk body
unbuttoning your pants and
telling you
it’s okay.

Eighteen and
the boy you loved
forcibly turning you over
his grunts and moans
made you nauseous and
the pain of him inside you
made you cry.

Twenty and
 your neighbor corners you
 in his room and
tells you that you can’t leave
so you beg and
push and
cry and
his arms outstretch around you, caging you in.

Let’s talk about it and
 talk about it and
 talk about it until
 we are out of breath.
Let’s tell the world how
you bent our bodies and
bruised our skin and
made us bleed and
stole from us and
how we are still here
to talk about it.

Let’s talk about it.



Ashley Green lives in Southern California where she is surrounded by brilliant women.

BUCKLE

by Sarah E. Colona

More cake than cobbler. Some call it slump. Some betty.
But it’s forever August in my Memory’s kitchen:
where peaches, butter, and brown sugar puddle.

Sweetness something he too expected
in his clumsy reach for what was never offered.
Some call three decades too late. Too faded.

As if trauma grows stale for survivors.
If not your vote, he would have your silence.
Every recipe yields in the end.

Sarah E. Colona lives and teaches in her home state of New Jersey. She is the author of three poetry collections: Hibernaculum (Gold Wake Press, 2013), Thimbles (dancing girl press, 2012) and That Sister (dancing girl press, 2016).

ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF RACHEL MITCHELL FROM THE KAVANAUGH HEARING, SEPTEMBER 27, 2018

by Patty Mosco Holloway

Is she still missing?
Another woman tossed away today,
only this time, not in a bedroom behind a locked door
with music blaring to drown out her cries.
This time it happened on national tv.
She just disappeared. Or was disappeared.
Never came back to question his honor,
this "lady assistant," expert prosecuting attorney,
hired by Republican Senators
to do their dirty work,
to make them look good
or at least, not so bad.
Behind her skirts they lurked
as she questioned the woman in question.
The  'Merican Publik never got to see
how they'd look, how they'd sound
grilling a "female" victim of sexual assault.

When they didn't like how the law-lady acted,
they threw her away,
took away her voice
muscled for the mic
outshouting each other,
sneering, jeering, puffing out chests,
doing the man-dance:
Who could be fiercest defending their boy?

They were no better than Kavanaugh's frat boys
"Finding," "Fucking," "Forgetting"
the girls they forced down onto beds
or stood in line to train rape
at their good ole "boys-will-be-boys-I-like-beer-
              I-liked-it-then-I-like-it-now" parties.

No, the Republican Senators never threw Ms. Mitchell down
under them onto a bed—they just used her awhile
then judged her useless,
took away her voice, tossed her away.
They might as well have tied her up in that chair
at the Hearing and stuck Kavanaugh's calendar into her mouth.
They made her invisible, shoved past her chair,
jockeying, ranting to rescue their boy.
Has anyone seen her?

Editor’s Note: “The outside prosecutor Senate Republicans [Rachel Mitchell] hired to lead the questioning in last week’s hearing about the sexual assault allegations against Brett M. Kavanaugh is arguing in a new memo why she would not bring criminal charges against the Supreme Court nominee. . . . Mitchell, whom GOP senators selected to handle the questioning in last week’s hearing with Ford and Kavanaugh, is a registered Republican who is chief of the special victims division of the Maricopa County attorney’s office in Phoenix. Although she asked Ford all of the questions posed by Republican senators, she asked Kavanaugh only two rounds of questions until GOP senators began speaking again." —The Washington Post, September 30, 2018

Patty Mosco Holloway is a writing teacher in Denver, Colorado. Her poems have appeared before in TheNewVerse.News and in Ekphrastic Review.

LIFESTYLE OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS

by George Salamon

At the top of our society, abuse
Sports the faces of distinction,
Oozing professional achievement.
Practicing the habits of the highly successful,
Trained in academies for the
Acculturation to country and golf club.
Learned in the language of denial and deceit
By masters in think tanks and public relations.
They have what it takes to stay in
And rise to the top by the  laws of the jungle.
Women were assembly-line bodies,
Some disagreeable challenges to be
Overcome by booze or by force,
Until each great man chose his
Love goddess to keep his home.


George Salamon is following the Brett Kavanaugh saga from the heartland in St. Louis, MO.

THERE'S NEVER ONLY ONE

by Joan Mazza 

“Justice Blindsided: Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser comes forward” by Pia Guerra, TheNib, September 17th, 2018

A wife wants to believe her husband
when he swears, after he’s arrested,
he has never picked up a hooker before.
That the affair on a business trip was

nothing, didn’t have anything to do
with his love for his wife, his daughters.
The altar boy feels chosen by the priest,
special child, loved and petted, blessed

by God to be special. The only one.
He won’t tell the other children because
they might covet his blessings, but never
will be chosen. One assault, the one time

he groped a co-worker, demanded sex.
Just once. A moment of recklessness,
like the therapist who hugs a patient,
lies down for comfort on his leather couch.

Once, he tells the professional licensing
board, his wife, his adult children.
It happened once. The judge says,
It will never happen again.

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has twice been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Potomac Review, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, and The Nation.

SCARLET LETTER

a scrambled abecedarian (b-a)
by Kathleen A. Lawrence

Treating the Witness As Hostile by Nomi Kane at The Nib

Bow-tied braggarts, bastions
of booze-blaming bullies cry
bull, boys and badgers, confused
or calculating drunken details
dump, erode egos, discredit,
evoke faulty faith to devalue,
dirtying facts gag and gouge
as guy-gangs hustle indulgence,
high school hijinks inflict insults,
insinuate, juggle judiciary kings,
keystones knocking lasciviousness
liberties mauled lady must be
mixed-up, Mrs. mistaken, nameless,
mucking up, needling to negate
nuance, taking oath obfuscates,
old preppies paddling Potomac,
peddling principles, poach questions,
quizzing professor by quoting
quibbling red republic run scorched
scarlet supreme, titillated teens
torch truth, touch, unravel, unnerve,
undermining her vixen vows,
vilified woman wrecked, vestige
of wisdom waning with wicked
exploding exploits of extended youth
exposed yielding to yens, yellowing,
yapping zealots assume, zookeepers
attack, zombies assault, aggressors
assign her letter A, the Accuser.

Kathleen A. Lawrence spent most of her youth in a plaid navy and spruce green plaid jumper and knee socks. Since then she has not worn knee socks but still spends her days at school. She teaches Communication, Pop Culture, and Gender and likes to write poetry. She has published in several magazines with poems about such things as the blue-shelled beetles, the sophisticated lily, mean 'tweens tweeting, Tr**p's tips for getting women, the lovely Puerto Rico, and growing up schooled by nuns wielding the ruler in the black and white days of pre-Vatican II. 

WHEN GIRLS LEARN TO SWIM

by Marsha Owens

Fear of Drowning by Chelsea Emerson

                                 
                                    dedicated to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford


water so big

tucked half in
half out nothing
to stand on in-
hale if you dare
surrender

bare shoulders
taut lips blue
legs spread
into scissors
stiff and strong
turn limp

relax
they say



Marsha Owens writes to understand. Her poems and essays have appeared at TheNewVerse.News, thewildword, Rat’s Ass Review, Streetlight Magazine, the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and in the anthology Life in 10 among others. She lives in Richmond,VA, not far from the peaceful Chesapeake Bay. 

I BELIEVE HER EVERY WORD

by Angie Minkin

The first time I was six years old,

walking home from school
with my best friend.
Big boys pulled us into the bushes.
They pulled our panties down
and laughed.
We ran home ashamed,
too afraid to tell.

When Ann and I were nine,
an older kid in the neighborhood
convinced us to join him
on his porch swing.
I remember every touch -
creepy, scary, so wrong.
That time we told.
Buzz was sent away.
His mother screamed at us.
We moved soon after.

Fast forward a hundred slights,
a thousand catcalls,
a million looks behind me
when I dared to walk alone at night.

Stop at 25:  our safe Iowa town, so friendly -
no one ever locked the door.
indescribable chill of a stranger in my bedroom,
pulling the sheet off my naked body,
my boyfriend right next to me.
I was nightmare frozen, voice strangled
Dan lost his voice screaming as he chased the intruder.

I knew it was Ben, our landlord’s strange nephew.
it was dark—I couldn’t prove it.
The cops didn’t believe me.
Why was I on trial?
I check all doors carefully now.

Stop at 27:  eager to start my new career
teaching disturbed kids in East Palo Alto
The day before school started,
the assistant principal showed me the supply closet.
Yes, he got me in a clinch.
What a stupid cliché.
I forced my arms up
as he forced his tongue in my mouth.
I didn’t know his name then.
I’ll never forget it now.

Stop at 32:  working in a Mission District office
a vagrant licked the large window
masturbated while staring right at me.
I pressed charges.
The jury found reasonable doubt
after I was grilled on my past.

Now a woman past my prime,
the cloak of invisibility is comforting
But the bile in my throat
will never completely vanish.

Angie Minkin’s poems have been published in The Pangolin Review and Vistas & Byways. After years of working her left brain, she is happily rehabilitating my right brain with poetry, yoga, and dance.  Minkin lives in San Francisco’s blue bubble where she takes poetry workshops with mentors Diane Frank and Kathleen McClung.