THE SUPREME ABORTION

by Lavinia Kumar 

Supreme Court says it can’t determine who leaked draft Dobbs opinion. 

—The Washington Post, January 20, 2023

No one

Confessed or squealed

The babe was dripped, not leaked.

Did the French letter have a hole?

Don’t tell.

 

In Court,

No leak of Roe—

No trust in settled law.

Was the IUD aborted?

Don’t tell.

 

The pill’s

Bitter poison

Sure to gag young women.

The law’s cold still-birth not controlled?

Don’t tell.

Lavinia Kumar’s latest book is Spirited American Women: Early Writers, Artists, & Activists—very short prose of near 90 amazing women writers, poets, publishers, painters, artists, abolitionists, early suffragettes, and activists.

THE BOARD SPEAKS TO AN ASSEMBLY OF FIFTH-GRADE GIRLS

by Terri Kirby Erickson 

Sunday school at a Baptist church in Kentucky, 1946 

The Board has determined that fifth grade,
which may be too late for some, is the most
optimal time to inform girls that post-birth
females are not fully autonomous human 
beings. No adverse circumstances or plans
or dreams or medical emergencies trump 
your legal and moral responsibility to give 
birth should any male, whether by force or 
consent, plant his seed in the fertile ground 
of a uterus that becomes, immediately upon
conception, the sole property of The State. 
The Board, comprised of five men and two 
wholly compliant women, strives to remain 
sympathetic to how hard it must be for you 
to accept this news, having been so revered 
before birth and deceived into believing you 
have the same rights and post-delivery value 
as boys and men. Let us assure you today, 
that you do not. Indeed, should you become 
pregnant and experience a life-threatening 
situation, the continuation of a fetal heart-
beat is all that matters. Furthermore, there 
are many government agencies dedicated to 
ensuring that, under penalty of death or life 
in prison for all involved, no pregnancy is
unlawfully terminated. No questions? Then 
you are, as will often be the case, dismissed.

 
Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of six collections of poetry, including A Sun Inside My Chest (Press 53), winner of an International Book Award for Poetry. Her work has appeared in “American Life in Poetry,” Asheville Poetry Review, JAMA,Poet’s Market, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore (QLRS), The SUN, The Writer’s Almanac, Third Wednesday, and many more. Other awards include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and a Nautilus Silver Book Award. 

KANSAS

by Donna Katzin

In the wake of Roe v. Wade’s demise

we see it coming—a blood-red wave  

that threatens to drown us

and our rights.

 

As pundits puzzle

and suited strategists opine,            

we step out from porches, campuses, back alleys,

leave our coat hangers in our closets,

 

rags and basins in our kitchens,

knock on doors of neighbors

who have yet to come out

of the house.                 

 

A horse parade prances by

with signs, “vote neigh,”

posters of a uterus

in a cowboy hat.

 

Texts like urgent birds,

words whispered, then spoken,

fly by in flocks unfettered

as our voices and our votes.

 

Our minds, our bodies                                                  

are our own—

will not be captured

any more than the wind.       

  

 

Author’s Note: On August 2, Kansas women and their supporters mobilized voters across the state to beat back a proposed amendment that would have allowed the state legislators to restrict or ban the abortion rights affirmed in the state’s constitution.  With an historic primary turn-out of half the state’s registered voters, the 59 to 41 percent victory at the polls built on decades of activism to protect women’s right to make their own decisions about their own bodies and health.  In the process, it set an important precedent for the nation following the US Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Donna Katzin is the former and founding executive director of Shared Interest, a fund that mobilizes the human and financial resources of low-income communities of color in South and Southern Africa.  A board member of Community Change in the U.S., and co-coordinator of Tipitapa Partners working in Nicaragua, she has written extensively about South Africa, community development and impact investing.  Published in journals and sites including The New Verse News and The Mom Egg, she is the author of With the Hands, a book of poems and photographs about post-apartheid South Africa’s process of giving birth to itself.

WOMAN, WAKING

by Sara Sarna

But Alito’s Italian stand-up routine came at the expense of millions of people’s lived realities in this country right now—many of whom will die because of his unpopular opinion. I personally don’t find it funny at all. —Laura Bassett, Jezebel, July 28, 2022

It was never a matter of balance. 

It was a poorly weighted pendulum  

that sent us scurrying 

between who we needed to be  

and who others needed. 

Sometimes we forgot 

how to choose ourselves, 

put off becoming, 

fell asleep to our value. 

Now you beat your drum 

in celebration of what you claim 

as victory, and it wakes us 

to your arrogance. 

This is one battle. 

We do not fear the war. 

Sara Sarna is a poet, actor and hiker in southeastern Wisconsin. Her work has been published in print and online, and been heard on stage and on the radio. Her chapbook Whispers from a Bench was published in 2019.

PINK

by Sandra Anfang

I didn’t think they’d do it

I thought it was a bluff.

 

Fifty years of progress

and the promise of more 

wrung like rags and tossed away.

 

Metal hanger signs dot the crowd. 

Bitter copper paints my tongue.

 

Red tears defile our cheeks

divide us into stars and stripes.

Iodine and salt set the stain

 

as the monthly blood of women 

swirls in pinwheel patterns

 

down the snowy drains

of smug old men who mock

our mock democracy.

 

Is that Sisyphus ahead

pushing his bloody burden up the hill

of fat white lies? Senators puff stogies

 

turn on their heels to leer as the

pageant of female flesh flows by

 

shouting, pumping fists and rage

marching in our pink pussy hats.

 

I can see from their lewd smiles

that this is entertainment of the

you look pretty when you’re angry kind.

 

It’s time to take a knee, sisters, every time

that cursed pledge is mouthed.

 

With liberty and justice for all we stand

united, ready to lift each other up.

We are at your cervix, America.

Author’s Note: My small town held a rally and march on Saturday that attracted hundreds of protestors, including many men and children. I'm holding the big sign in the photo by Beth Schlanker in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, with my ninety-year-old friend.

 

Sandra Anfang is a California poet, teacher, and artist. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including Rattle, The New Verse News, The MacGuffin, and Spillway. Her poetry collections include Looking Glass Heart (Finishing Line Press, 2016), Road Worrier (Finishing Line Press, 2018), and Xylem Highway (Main Street Rag, 2019). Kelsay Books will publish her chapbook Finishing School in early 2023. She’s been nominated for a Best Short Fictions award, Best of the Net, and a Pushcart Prize. Anfang is founder and host of the monthly series, Rivertown Poets (established 2013), and a poetry teacher in the schools.

FREEDOM ON FIRE

by Emily Jo Scalzo

Let the flag fly inverted on our 

so-called Independence Day,

a message from the newly chained:

we cannot abide these treasons—

rampart rockets set to kindle

a drought-wracked nation

aflame with hate and greed,

and all the rest no longer 

free to flee conflagration

in the twilight of justice. 

Emily Jo Scalzo holds an MFA in fiction from California State University-Fresno and is currently an assistant teaching professor teaching research and creative writing at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Their work has appeared in various magazines including Midwestern Gothic, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Blue Collar Review, The New Verse News. Their first chapbook The Politics of Division (2017) was awarded honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards in 2018.

WHAT TO TELL CHILDREN WHEN ALL THE NEWS IS SCARY

by Diane Dolphin

“With war in Ukraine, editors help kids cope with scary news.” —News Decoder, February 25, 2022

We have failed you,

utterly.

 

We sold you a fairy tale: Once upon a time,

all children were created equal.

We proclaimed your bodies, your lives

as sovereign. Daughters,

that is no longer true. Black and brown sons,

we know it never was.

 

We have fiddled while the west burns,

the east floods, the poles dissolve.

We watched our elders succumb to pandemic

while we fought over masks. Lost

our children to weapons of death while

we debated the definition of

assault rifles. We wait ­–

we wait—as you are picked off

one by one.

 

Child, the barbarians have breached the gates.

The monster is in your classroom.

Dread seeps into your sleep.

Jabberwock has grown a new head,

is assembling his army of minions.

How can we possibly

console you?

 

You need to grow up,

quickly now. Leave us, the weak-willed

and stunned.

Take up your pen and shield, unleash

your small voices, amass in great numbers.

Demand we step aside.

You are your only hope.

Author’s Note: Above is a poem I wrote in response to the deluge of bad news lately, culminating in the Supreme Court Decision. The poem—and my title—is inspired by the barrage of media articles that always come on the heels of unimaginable news, and which are headlined along the variation of: "What to tell children when the news is scary." 

Diane Dolphin is a poet, writer, and former college instructor from Warwick, RI. 

SCREE

by Akua Lezli Hope

The five-justice Supreme Court bloc that overturned a half century of women's abortion rights on Friday had coalesced less than two years. But they had found their moment and they seized it. 

—CNN, June 25, 2022

This is insane, jackboot, psychic rape

The Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade

another way the inane U.S. of A

reminds it's not for most of us

already thrown under the careening bus

of a twisted, hegemonic, male patriarchy

 

We’re flattened again into oppressed dust

made to adhere to perverted needs

the worst of pornographic politics

their insatiable soul-robbing greed

to control another’s body

There's no daycare, scant maternity leave,

 

and yes, human trafficking is on the rise… 

as are rates of suicides, which could be

assuaged by an increase in minimum wage

 

They are on the take, ensuring innocent’s demise

States have their say over our reproduction

 

Those who don’t give a damn, limit our care

already so much less than what is fair

I pay 5 grand a year for nothing,

fight each and every month for access

to protective gear, bandages, dressings

 

Regressive, life threatening government decisions—

we feel the genteel violence of head in sand inaction

the incessant roar of entertainments’ self-indulgent distractions

who cares if one multimillionaire berates another

 

They build on sliding mountaintops and buy

their own fresh water, their own fresh air

their wild caught this and free range that

we communicate instantly these mounting tragedies

ever less and less and less free

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator and wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music,  sculpture, and peace.  A paraplegic, third-generation New Yorker, her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, SFPA, Rhysling and Pushcart Prize nominations.

THE FARRIER OF TIME

by Ian Randall Wilson

“Death blue butterfly” by mirrurin at Deviant Art

It's like waking from the dream of an accident

into the accident, real and sure to be bloody,

the day pulling hard from the list of extinct thoughts

suddenly revived after 50 years.

It's easy to be furious with the ones

who read the entrails but ignored

the auguries, secure in their belief

the drum would not beat this day,

forest sending smoke rings back in time,

and yet I find I am furious with myself,

feeling at fault that somehow we let them—

I let them—turn the wheel

so the earth-mind must shift

toward thinking again

about bent wires and blood.

 

Except those endowed enough

to survive the ruins

and make it to the coasts

on damaged wings, the back alleys

will open for business

and the blue butterflies

will once again

die there.  How can it be

that the permanent road

now leads elsewhere?

 

Oh, the six are resplendent

in their black robes pretending

the sunset is not bleak.

They hold up their hands

which they claim are not stained,

the rest of us stand covered in ash.

 

When they entered the pit, they told us

the air was settled, vowed all was settled.

How good of them, how good

for them in their bribed cabins,

their false and active gods arranged,

watering the Chrysanthemum.

Ian Randall Wilson has poems published in many journals including Puerto del Sol and Alaska Quarterly Review. His first full-length collection is entitled Ruthless Heaven. He has an MFA in poetry and in fiction from Warren Wilson College. By day, he is an executive at Sony Pictures.

TO EMBODY THE BREEZE

by Kent Reichert

Samuel Alito; drawing by David Levine

At what point do men sit in judgement on the wind

or declare the light of the sun to be illegitimate?

Who threatens the height of waves upon the sea

or punishes the lightning for its brilliance?

What sovereign governs the mind and body,

imposing only its transitory will upon human essence

until the final physical manifestation

presents itself

to be

ignored and forgotten.

Do we cloak perjury in everlasting robes

and acquit the deception

as a harmless falsehood

enabling the taste of judges we savor,

garbing ourselves in the trappings and vestments of,

"God's will!"

That is, our God's will.

Who sings the elegy

for truth,

now floating helplessly aloft

untethered to reality?

The leader cleans his glasses and smiles

while the useful idiot struts and preens

telling the fawning, faithful masses,

certain in their creeds and dogma,

"I did this!"

Quietly, away from the light of day,

the leader softly phrases his words with hollow lips

intoning with a smirk, "No, I did this!"

"I did it all 

for the sake of power and dominion."

And, in the assembly of self-righteous,

monochromatic males,

Whatever he says is the way

becomes the truth,

and for women,

their lives.

Kent Reichert is a retired educator who believes in the power of words. His work has appeared in The Dead Mule and The Dispatch.

ON CASSIDY’S COATTAILS

by Indran Amirthanayagam

You have affirmed my faith Cassidy Hutchinson
in telling the truth, in speaking it openly before
the camera, in real time, before Congress, before
history and its judgments, before the criminal
watching from his Mar a Lago mansion, before
my children, before all people interested
in seeing the line that cannot and will not
be crossed no matter how many tantrums,
and lunges for the clavicle, and requests
to overturn an election fairly won come down
from the boss, the besotted and dangerous fool
who took control of the powers of state and sought
to make them serve himself first, his acolytes second,
and damn the people, his charge. Damn even
the deranged, armed with rifles, handguns,
spears and flagpoles and bear spray who marched
to stop certification of the US election. Amazing

that we saw this defacement, as Cassidy said,
of our Capitol. Amazing that we got through
that plunder, and are still living and loving
and moving about our United States. We were
driven to the brink. And the violation of 
women’s rights called Dobbs, and the approval
to carry guns in public, and I don’t know what
else, will come out of that radicalized building
on 1^st Street NE, but let me speak for the not
silent majority. No more. We will not allow
Januuary 6^th to happen again. Not in one day.

Not incrementally with elimination of
our human rights. There is a new day
in America charged, recharged, driven
by ethics, faith in the republic, in
undeniable rights. Morning again
I call it, for the mother and father
of all marches, in America. Not
on the Capitol, but in the conscience
of all our people. for truth, for justice,
for liberty. for the American way
not the highway, not the forked
road, not the Kool aid served
by the deluded prophet in a MAGA hat.

Indran Amirthanayagam's newest book is Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks). Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

BURNING

by Mary Specker Stone

Whenever I make chilli, I use what I find in the refrigerator,

today, two serrano chilis, thirty or so little tomatillos 

from the garden, and some grass-fed beef that’s too tough

for any other purpose than slow-cooking in a chili. Slicing

the serranos lengthwise with my largest chef’s knife, 

I scrape out the tiny seeds and pulp with my index fingernail,

chop them small, not to a mince, but who knows where the line is?

Boiling water loosens the tomatillos’ papery wrappers to allow

me to peel them, cut them in half. My fingers, not yet burning 

as I chop an onion, press a few small garlic cloves, cut open 

the package of ground beef, add all these ingredients 

to the sauté pan. Roe v Wade has been overturned. Liberty,

as in, history of. Herstory, the proper term, the one we used at

the feminist clinic. Yes, I’m thinking about the right to abortion 

as I cook this meal, and my fingers begin to burn. More burning 

as I wash the dishes. The more water, the more burn. That’s how 

capsaicin infuses the flesh. I might have worn gloves to handle

the serranos, but I didn’t protect my fingers with latex, I wanted 

to feel the chilis’ crisp greenness, so I used my bare hands, 

and now, an hour later, I can barely grip the pen for the burning.

Mary Specker Stone’s work has been published in The Gyroscope Review, The Healing Art of Writing, vol. 1, Paradise Review, and Gila River Review. Mary lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she works as a spiritual director and facilitates a monthly poetry salon. 

A PIVOT

by Imogen Arate

With you I am 

never alone

never in comfort

With me you 

have meaning

find purpose

A reflection of myself

an imprint

a ghost of the past

Your perpetual search

for mommy-

dearest Facts forsake

My forward motion

propelled by reenactment

of recurring cursed roles

you find reassurance

That devil you know

offers no surprises

I flee into the unknown

and you drag in fear

"Let’s go back”

You plead

“Let’s find comfort

in the familiar”

“Remember the good times”

“When I was the slave

and you the master”

Author's Note: I would like to acknowledge the influence Emma Rhodes’ “Johnny Depp Wins, and I Like So Many Others, Think of the Man Who Abused Me” had on my poem.

Imogen Arate is an award-winning Asian-American poet and writer and the Executive Producer and Host of Poets and Muses, a weekly poetry podcast that won second place at National Federation of Press Women's 2020 Communications Contest, where she has served as a national-level poetry judge in 2021 and 2022.  She often reacts to news in verse, which you can read here, on The New Verse News, as well as in other publications. You can find her @PoetsandMuses and @ImogenArate on Twitter and Instagram.

SITTING ON A TOILET :: ALONE WITH A BED OF ROSES

by Jen Schneider

a group of seven women, all in their late teens, wear white tee shirts of various cuts - scoop, crew, tank – one with spaghetti straps. another with scalloped edges. all on edge. each has a denim bucket hat. each carries a green patent leather (faux) handbag (freshly polished, purchased for $19.99 the night before). one holds a pair of scissors and removes price tags. i sit on a toilet (enraged and in close range / out of sight but not out of fright) and count - sneakers (mostly converse, some ked) and minutes (mostly spinning, some spun). each woman’s tee bears a unique logo: my body my choice; overturn roe - hell no; abortion on demand; abortion without apology; abortion = health care; forced birth is enslavement; shame on you scotus. the letters’ order differ. the order of their message is the same. the women’s bags hold a mix of sundries (bobby pins, breath mints, band aids) and sprays (deodorant - lilac / pepper - precautionary). the women exchange salutations (i’d say good morning but it’s not) and apply sunblock with an SPF of 50 to each other’s bare backs (each has the others’ backs). i am not of them, though i am one of them. each of them is one of me. i know what they carry as well as i know myself. and as little as i know my next steps. one girl takes note of the block print SPF 50 and pauses. fifty years of precedent if not progress / protection if not precaution – gone, she says. the others agree. i take notes (both physical and mental) while i sit in an adjacent bathroom stall, the window’s cover (blinds though not blinded) is open just enough for me to hear them and angled just enough for me to see them, and wonder what to do next. i sit - my middle bent, my legs form a soft v. that my fingers mimic. a cramp pulses and i instinctively smooth the purple corduroy jumper with no waist (a button down, fully buttoned) that covers my torso and jump. i can think of nothing other than rabbits and holes and time and ticking clocks. my eyes track an analog clock affixed to the white cinderblock wall. both hands move – backward. i’m trapped and will soon grow large / the challenge larger. i mouth silent curses and nearly snap. oh dear / oh dear. the women snap photos – mostly selfies – and laugh. their high-pitched voices (of innocence not yet incensed) remind me of a childhood quilt – one with snoopy, hello kitty, and strawberry shortcake patches / hand-stitched. i no longer recognize my own hands – most nails are bitten, all cuticle beds are raw." bed of roses" once a favorite song. i remain on the toilet. wounded though not wasted. and try hard to reclaim a moment / a morning – i don’t know how. the women continue to chatter. one says, we shouldn’t / it’s not the right time. another replies, it’s the only time / we must. and they do - i watch them coat their lips in thick cherry red gloss. i squint and inhale, then flush. i exhale and groan. "bed of roses" plays – somewhere / perhaps nowhere. the women silence. are you okay, one whispers. her eyes track then trace the source of my vocals. their postures shift. i see my reflection (green) in the sheen of her patent leather purse and reply - i do not know. of all the things i’ve ever believed, i’ve never felt more alone.

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

IF THIS WERE A SAM ALITO POEM

by Dick Westheimer

Learn to predict a fire with unerring precision.

Then burn down the house to fulfill the prediction.

—Czeslaw Milsoz

If this were a Sam Alito poem,  it would be written in tidy couplets, matched in beat and time. It would forget that words are born from grunts and battle cries, that swords decide which terms can be used and which are taboo, that the right to cleave your neighbor with a steel blade is her duty to bear Samuel’s baby, the one he so loves, the one that he is willing to render in tersets and turds, to bang and clang the lines into refrigerator magnets with the only words being “life” and “thoughts” and “and” and “prayers.”

If this were an Amy Coney Barrett poem, The First Word In Each Line Would Be  Capitalized, the lines themselves would neatly rhyme, would chime with the rhythm of the Sainted Ones, entrain with the iambs of a military parade—with goose-stepping Aunties’ heads and staffs held high, saluting to the the crowd of Commander’s wives in their hues of blue, and to the Guardians of the Right who know a thing or two about the bump and mad grind, about how we’re all inclined to naughty deeds with the lights turned off with a glory hole chemise cagoule between a woman and the beasts with their hairy parts and the beat of steeple-hatted bigots stomping time on courthouse floorboards.

If this were a Clarence Thomas poem, the meter will be trochee, a hammer hammer hammer double time.  It would be a sestina cycling lines of the before times when men were men and women were not, when guns were muskets and books were sewn with linen thread, when Coke cans shed the hair of the dog that bit us all, when what was written in the age of powdered wigs was wise and there would be a crowning of a New King who’d reign over a land where men who held hands with men were melted down into guns anointed by boys who’d hold lead to the heads of women great with child.

And if this were my poem, the verse would be blank, the words mute, the letters scattered across the page. The white space would be smudged with ash, the margins smudged with blood and pocked with powder burns. The verse would exercise its right to remain silent, cuffed to a chair, pregnant, with despair.

Dick Westheimer  has—with his wife and writing companion Debbie—lived on their plot of land in rural southwest Ohio for over 40 years. His most recent poems have recently appeared or are upcoming in Rattle, Paterson Review, Chautauqua Review, RiseUp Review, Ekphrastic Review, Minyan, Gyroscope Review, and Cutthroat.

JUSTICE, CLARENCE?

by Geoffrey Philp

Justice Clarence Thomas, hailed as the “brightest

possible northern star“ and lauded as a “legal titan”

prefers the sobriquet of Originalist, a justice intent

on reversing laws not explicit in the Constitution.

And while he remained quiet during oral arguments,

he’d been preparing tortured briefs against abortion

and affirmative action, which he called a threat

to the “notion of equality,” in his considered opinion.

But I wonder what the other black-robed justices think.

For at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia

Clarence would’ve been reduced to 3/5 of a man—

His marriage would’ve been ruled as miscegenation

His home surrounded by hooded men on horseback:

“Don’t be scared, ma’am. We’re just here for the n***er.”

Geoffrey Philp is the author of two novels, Garvey’s Ghost and Benjamin, my son,, three children’s books, including Marcus and the Amazons, and two collections of short stories. He has also published five books of poetry. His forthcoming books include a graphic novel for children titled My Name is Marcus and a collection of poems titled Archipelagos. His forthcoming poetry collection borrows from Kamau Brathwaite’s “Middle Passage” lecture, Aime Cesaire’s Discourse on Colonialism, Sylvia Wynter’s “1492,” and Amitav Ghosh’s thesis in The Nutmeg’s Curse to explore the relationship between Christianity, colonialism, and genocide. He is currently working on a collection of poems titled Letter from Marcus Garvey. He can be found on twitter and on instagram.