THE CONVENIENT WIFE

by Elisabeth Frischauf

cartoon by Bill Bramhill

Pockets strife

Shoulders the blame

Picks up the stain

For anyone

Fanning the flame

Against husband’s fame

Deep in her bosom

Buries misdeeds

Twitter poison feed

Lucky this man

Justice of our land

Whose wife

With bravura and passion

Hangs

Our stripes and stars

Upside down

Elisabeth Frischauf is a psychiatrist, grandmother, and visual artist in many media: ceramics, collage, mobiles. Poetry is intimately bound up with her art.  Being multilingual and anchored in two cultures—the family homeland in Austria and New York City— enriches all her work. Her epic narrative memoir poem, They Clasp My Hand, short-listed for the Austria Literary Prize, was published in April 2022 by the Theodor Kramer Verlag, Vienna, Austria. This book is in process for on demand, English only, by She Writes Press.  Two more memoir verse books are in the publication pipeline.  She publishes poems in various on-line magazines. She lives with her husband, playwright Richard France by a lake in Putnam County, New York.

MORAL CHARACTER

by Frederick Wilbur

Dear Justice Roberts, honorable by name,

here is a friendly note from the public-

at-large though the message is but one:

if you have even a whereas of shame

it would be wise, indeed, politic,

to share some with colleagues who have none.

Frederick Wilbur is a writer and architectural woodcarver living in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. His poetry collections are As Pus Floats the Splinter Out and Conjugation of Perhaps. He was awarded the Midwest Quarterly’s Stephen Meats Poetry Prize. He is poetry co-editor and blogger for Streetlight Magazine.

HOW TO HANDLE A LEAK

by Ann E. Wallace

My daughters and I live in a leaky 

old house. The three of us have 

learned how to handle a plumbing 

emergency, to spring into action, 

sop up the mess, cut the water lines,

track the source, mend the seams.

 

This is what women do.

We live in bodies that bleed,

are vulnerable, that give life 

but also betray, and we have 

passed down the fortitude 

to handle leaks and other messes. 

There is wisdom in our living, 

and we know how to act 

when a leak is sprung, exposing 

the ill intentions of those 

who do not live in our bodies, 

those who spout 

outrage at the egregious 

betrayal—as if they know 

what betrayal is—of being 

caught with the pipe cutters 

in their bloody hands.

 

As they sputter and point fingers, 

we—the women—are gathering 

our tools, our rage, and our ballots, 

like we have so many times before, 

ready to fight for our freedom.

Ann E. Wallace is a poet and essayist from Jersey City, New Jersey. Follow her on Twitter @annwlace409 or on Instagram @annwallacephd.com.