WOMEN'S WAVE 2019

by Donna Katzin

A contingent of Jewish women and supporters march to Freedom Plaza in Washington on Saturday. (Evelyn Hockstein for The Washington Post, January 19, 2019)

In the shadow of the Thurgood Marshall Court House,
above the African Burial Ground,
we come from our own Egypts
our Red Seas, deserts of despair,
wildernesses of silence.

Rivers from centuries and continents
some resplendent, some reluctant,
converge, water this wave.

As the rally wakes to Aretha’s reveille—
Respect—the youngest demonstrator,
on her mother’s shoulders,
thrusts her tiny fist
over the shivering crowd.        

A black bearded brother in a pink pussy hat
snaps bare fingers, bobs to refrains
of Sweet Honey in the Rock.

And from the Italian contingent –
Ravioli, ravioli,
Give me my birth controli!

In kente cloth, a grandmother from Nigeria
waves her sign: Human rights
don’t stop at the border.

Our parka-ed multi-colored bodies—
gay, straight, trans—sway
to the Resistance Revival Chorus,
do not feel the cold.

Millenials contemplate the question:
Ever wonder what you would have done during slavery,
the holocaust, civil rights?
You’re doing it right now!

Together we remember those who march with us:
Sandra Bland, Mother Jones, Dolores Huerta,
Ethel Rosenberg, Fanny Lou Hamer,
who taught us: Solidarity is
not a spectator sport.

Rise up, Sisters.
Democracy is a dance.
Our movement is a wave.
We are a revolution.

It’s our damn turn.


Donna Katzin is the 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 TheNewVerse.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.

SIMPLE MATH

by Marissa Glover

When he calls her horseface
I hear dumb bitch and remember
when you texted to tell me
Wife #2 is 5x the woman I am.
It doesn’t matter if I’m 1/2 Italian
or 1/4 Irish or 1/1024 Cherokee—
you’ve always got my number.
If only one drop of Eve’s blood
lurks inside these arteries, the heart
pumps sin to the body.
You point your finger > I take the fall.
Cow + Crazy + Lowlife + Loser + Cunt
Never equals,
we’re reduced to a name
that is not our own.
Not even the one our fathers gave us
because zero plus zero is always zero.
5,246,670 women could march on Washington
and, still, the sum of every woman in America
is nothing.

Marissa Glover is a teacher and writer who shares her thoughts more than necessary, which she considers a form of charitable giving. If it counted as a tax deduction, she’d be rich. Her poetry has been published at Easy Street, The Opiate, Lipstick Party Magazine, Unbroken Journal, Helen: A Literary Magazine, and Muddy River Poetry Review, among others—and is forthcoming from Riggwelter. Twitter:  @_MarissaGlover_.

SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME

by Jack Powers 





Washington was a sea of pink pussy hats Saturday
         and New York and Stamford and Chicago and LA
while Anne and I sat at home, realizing we missed out,
         thinking if we all march on Day 2, what's left for Day 100?

I emptied the dishwasher, let the dog lick the plates,
         read the signs on TV: We shall overcomb,
Ovaries before Brovaries, Electile Dysfunction.

I re-tied my blue and orange Asics, perfect marching shoes,
         bought in a mall in California when one of my old sneakers
fell out of our rental car. I'm obsessed with avocados.
         But low blood sugar is costing more rain forests.

I called Will on his first day at NYU, my brain a half step
         behind my mouth. You keep contradicting yourself, he said
when I told him to eat well and then to find cheaper food.

I sounded just like my father. Some days I can't get both feet
         out of my mouth. Last year I wrote about wanting to be black
when I was young, about fro-ing my hair and reading Soul on Ice.
         about dressing up for Mardi Gras as a black jazz musician,

playing "When the Saints Go Marching In" on a kid's plastic trumpet.
         Zak shook his head, said something about appropriation.
True. True. But I nailed that Louis Armstrong rasp,
     
singing, Lord, I want to be in that number, Oh, when the saints!
         squeezing the red and green plastic valves, mopping my brow
with a white handkerchief. He was so damn cool. I am not.
         Zak asked me to hide the picture when his girlfriend visits.

 In a dream last night, I proposed to Anne by spreading
         peanut butter on her hand and licking it off.
To make matters worse, I told her about it in the morning.

The Times' top left column seems dedicated to T***p's lie of the day:
         crowd size, illegal voters. By Day 100 will everyone want a do over?
For dinner I may eat crow again with just a sliver of avocado,
         keep my sneakers tied—ready next time to shut up and march.

Jack Powers teaches special education. English and math at Joel Barlow High School in Redding, Connecticut, and directs the school’s Writing Center. He won the 2015 and 2012 Connecticut River Review Poetry Contests and was a finalist for the 2013 and 2014 Rattle Poetry Prizes. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, The Southern Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, Cortland Review and elsewhere. 

FUNERALS FOR FETUSES

by Eliza Mimski

This poster was created by Shepard Fairey who eight years ago made the iconic Obama poster that captured a period of HOPE in America. Today we are in a very different moment, one that requires new images that reject the hate, fear, and open racism that were normalized during the 2016 presidential campaign. So on Inauguration Day, We the People will flood Washington, DC with NEW symbols of hope. You can download the set of posters for free at: http://bit.ly/wtpdownloads. You can choose to support this We the People art project via Kickstarter.

1969. Nineteen years old and pregnant.
I couldn't afford to keep the baby.
In those days, before Roe vs Wade,
you had to prove to two psychiatrists
that you were mentally unable to go through
with the pregnancy.
They wrote letters to the medical board of the
hospital performing the abortion.
Insurance didn't cover the psychiatric visits.

The first psychiatrist asked if I would kill myself
if I didn't have the abortion.
I said yes, I would take my life,
even though this wasn't true.
He jotted some notes on a yellow legal pad.
He asked me little else.
The second psychiatrist asked if the sight of a penis
frightened me. I said yes. I lied that the sight of a penis frightened me.
He wrote that down.

My fate was in their hands.
They determined
my future . . .

The state of Texas now requires women
who have abortions or miscarriages
in hospitals,
in abortion clinics
or in other health facilities
to bury or cremate the fetal remains.

In Indiana, Mike Pence signed legislation
to force women to have fetal funerals
for abortions or miscarriages.
This can be carried out by the facility.
A name for the fetus during
transport to the burial ground
is not required.

Eliza Mimski is a retired high school English teacher living in San Francisco. She is still coping with the election and the news by writing poetry. Her work has appeared in Quiet Lightning's Sparkle and Blink, Fiction 365, Poets Reading the News, and is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic.

I WOULD KNIT YOU A PUSSY

by Hope Holz

Image source: Pussyhat Project

I would knit you a pussy
with yarn soft and squishy—
cashmere and mohair and silk with glisten and sheen.
And because it would be a multi-cultural pussy, colors like—
mauve and taupe and aubergine.
And in the spot loved most by us,
a giant, shining pearl for the clitoris.

I would place this hand-crated creation on a golden platter,
but before I could present it to you,
you would grab that pussy,
because that is what you do.
You would be enraptured and caress its
glorious folds with your baby hands
and mark each contour
wherever your pouted mouth lands.
At first, you would not notice
your new pussy has no woman attached.
But soon after, you would find
you prefer a disembodied snatch.

You would brag to everyone who might listen
about your new vaginal acquisition:
            “I own the best pussy.
No one owns a better pussy than me.
            I’m telling you—The. Best. Pussy.—
            and I know pussy, people.”

Months later, you would end your nightly ritual
by gently laying your pussy upon your pillow.
You would lie your head next to it,
nuzzle it,
your hair an orange, glowing halo.
I would slip into your room—a pussy ninja—
and find you sleeping that way
(you and your pussy, best friends forever).
I would tiptoe to your bed,
pluck your pussy from its pillow
and steal it away.

In the morning, you would be a blubbering babe
to find your pussy gone.
How dare someone take something so precious
that you call your own?

And then, you might begin to know
what it is like.

Hope Holz is a published poet who recently completed her Master of Liberal Studies degree in Creative Writing from Southern Methodist University. Currently, she is furiously knitting as many pink pussy hats for the upcoming National Women’s March on Washington. She finds her knitting needles to be fine weapons for resistance.