WHY I SHOW UP ON WEDNESDAY AT 4:30 PM ON THE CURB ACROSS FROM 188 HARVEST LANE IN MY HOMETOWN

by Tricia Knoll

Google Maps photo of 188 Harvest Lane, Williston. It houses the "Law Enforcement Support Center," ie the ICE national data collection facility.

Because I can carry a chair to sit in for one hour

Because I remember what sit in means

Because they will not let us be on their side of the street

Because workers inside need a gated parking lot 

Because the building has only mirror windows

Because we can’t see inside but know enough

Because workers inside can see out

Because they shuffle national data about who will be deported from where and when

Because they maneuver to disappear people 

Because they refuse to share information

Because on this side of the street, we are 13, a jury plus one

Because we vow silence, meditate, stare back at their mirror glass

Because fear brings me back 

Because where else will my tears go

Tricia Knoll lives not far from this ICE national data collection facility in Williston, Vermont. She has joined a group of people to sit across the street from this facility on Wednesday afternoons to remind ourselves and others driving by that the machinations of ICE are continuous, ongoing.

DEPORTATION RECRUITMENT AMERICAN STYLE

by Mickey J. Corrigan

Isn't it time for you
to help America
reverse cultural decline?

Hey Ho ICE Must Go
to the farms to pick
up the fieldworkers!

Give us a urine sample
give us an interview
get two thumbs up
if you clean and mean.

Hey Ho ICE Must Go
out to Home Depots
to grab working invaders!

Get you a medical screen
pass our fitness test
the background check
and cover your face.

Hey Ho ICE Must Go
to immigration courts
for the law abiders!

A stint at ICE Academy
(it don't last long
they cut the weeks
by more than half)
strap on your firearm!

Hey Ho ICE Must Go
into the streets
to look for foreigners!

You don't need Spanish
vehicle pursuit training
education or skills
you don't need much
just the choice to join
our band of masked thugs.

Hey Ho ICE Ready to Go
show the whole world
what America stand for
kidnap some baby moms
crying kids, working folk
off to the secret camps
to god knows what-all
in El Salvador, Africa. 

Ready, young patriot
to reverse cultural decline?
So sign up now
for that 50K bonus
be America First
and kick alien ass!

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan hides out in the lush ruins of South Florida. She writes pulp fiction, literary crime, and psychological thrillers. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and chapbooks. A collection of biographical poems on twentieth century poets is in press with Clare Songbirds Publishing.

BLACK ICE

by Lavinia Kumar

In Edison [NJ], thousands of immigrant workers toil in hundreds of warehouses, sorting millions of boxes arriving from nearby ports before being sent by trucks across the United States. But this summer has delivered something else. Immigration raids a few weeks apart at two warehouses have unsettled the daily rhythms of this busy corridor, where Amazon, FedEx and UPS have a large presence. The second raid happened Wednesday, [August 20] and resulted in the arrests of 29 workers, among the largest sweeps in the region since President Trump took office. Warehouses have been left short-staffed and behind schedule as detained workers were sent to immigration jails and others stopped showing up. —The New York Times, August 22, 2025

Oh, those winter mornings,

that fresh brisk air,

you go for a walk, spot a deer,

forget to look at the path,

and down you go—black ice.

Yes, black ice, its face invisible,

not like real ice, like white ice, 

in sweet slushies soothing a hot day,

or like crackling ice dropped

into an evening cocktail.

Yes, black ice, its every feature

disguised so you cannot not see danger.

 

Like tinted car windows to hide

the dark man in handcuffs taken by

Black ICE, this working man

taken from his family, from his work.

Black ICE seizing this man,

counting on a bonus award,

adding to the number 

for the White House 

Black ICE tally.

 

Black ICE in black masks,

Black ICE with tinted windows

Black ICE in unmarked vans

Black ICE with no warrants

Black ICE taking husbands,

mothers, fiancés, wives,

Black ICE taking dark men

who pay taxes, who love,

who have children

to Black ICE cages,

to who knows where

to crowded Black ICE jails.

 

And yes that young deer you saw

before you slipped on black ice

danced on its ballet hoofs

into bushes, into hiding,

hiding from you,

like a neighbor, like a friend,

hiding from Black ICE.

See Lavinia Kumar’s three food stories in Issue Five of Ruby Literary Press, The Monsoon Rain winning a 2024 Pushcart nomination.

THREE ICEFOUND POEMS

by Melanie DuBose

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

1

children formed

a human wall
around
their mother
as 
masked men
reached for her
 
Don't let go
don't let go
a child said
 
"I'm still shaking," —a bystander

2

It's about 

crazy spectacles of violence
dismantling resistance
suppressing dissent
paralyzing the community
authoritarianism and control
gestapo-style intimidation
 
We let them in 
they asked to use the bathroom
they did not use the bathroom
 
"We were not ready," —Museum Worker.

3
3pm to 3am

We dance
honk horns
play music
 
kidnappers
hunt down our family members
throw them down on concrete
question the very workers
who clean their rooms
 
"A peaceful protest just very noisy," —Verita Topoke.

Author’s note: Each poem was found in the words of the news report hyperlinked to its title.

Melanie DuBose lives under camphor trees filled with parrots in Los Angeles (Highland Park). A graduate of the UCLA film school and an advocate for equity in arts education. Her prose and poetry have been published in many journals, including The Ekphrastic Review, Kelp/the Wave, The Los Angeles Press, Nixes Mate Review,, and The New Verse News. She recently finished writing her first novel, People Who Love You.

LIKE WHEN THEY TRY TO SLASH MEDICAID, ETC

by Lynne Schilling

          After Al Ortolani

Representative Eric Burlison, Republican of Missouri and a member of the Freedom Caucus, said it was “inappropriate” for Republicans to say that they “aren’t going to touch” Medicaid — a phrase that Mr. Trump has used — and then “leave all that fraud in the system.” He suggested that provider taxes, which states use to offset their portion of the cost of Medicaid, were a form of “fraud” that he would want to eliminate. —The New York Times, May 29, 2025. AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

Protected by the roof of the porch, a robin has tucked her
nest on top of the artificial spring wreath hung on the front 
door, with easy access to grass and flowers and oak tress—
 
showing she knows something about location, location, location
in picking real estate. But when the door swings open, she flies
flustered from the nest, fussing nearby until the door closes.
 
It’s like finding the foundation underneath the kids’ bedroom 
is cracked. Like attempting to eat cherry ice cream on a steamy 
afternoon in a cone that has a hole in the bottom, or trying 
 
to drink a cup of scalding coffee on a train when it lurches. 
It’s like believing your child is safe because she is American 
born, only to see her swept up by ICE and sent to Honduras. 
 
Mothers need to be flexible, but there are so many openings 
to peril, so many teeth in the mouth of despair. They might tie 
themselves in knots, but even the most agile can’t block it all.

Lynne Schilling has published poems in Quartet, The Alchemy Spoon, Rue Scribe, Braided Way Magazine and others. She won Honorable Mention in the 2024 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Contest for her poem, “Prayers I Wish I’d Uttered When Forced to Pray Aloud in Fifth Grade.”