AUBADES FOR WOMEN LOST

by Andrena Zawinski

“Aubade,” 1942 by Pablo Picasso

So—

(An Aubade for a Woman Lost

So he gave her a pearl handled gun,

its skull and crossbones in a red red rose.

So she packed it moonlighting 

driving nights for a ride share.

So she never used it.

So it was used on her.

So he shoved it sideways inside her

mouth smeared bloody with lipstick.

So her temple bore a jewel of a bullet bloom.

So her dark eyes rolled backwards ghastly white.

So she kept on talking: no, oh no, oh no.

So he was a person of interest let go.

So they strung a cardboard toe tag

where she had worn his gold band.

So they put her in the cold bed 

silenced in a morgue drawer.

So at daybreak on her birthday, he ate 

that same gun, metallic on the tongue, 

crying out: no, oh no, oh no.

So it never even made the evening news.

—for Georgeann Eskievich Rettberg 

    (1952-2003)

She—

(Another Aubade for a Woman Lost)

She, mother of three

in the routine of another day,

shot down driving away 

in the Minnesota snow 

from ICE officers

mixed and missed dictates.

She, another woman lost, 

her wife and observers

in a chorus of fear

calling out

oh no, oh no, oh no.

She, a poet who wrote

of solipsist sunsets,

tercets from cicadas,

that the bible and qur’an 

and bhagavad gita…

make room for wonder.

She, now a metaphor

of lilies and lavender,

votives and tea lights

peace signs and queer flags

for what could have been,

what could be for any of us.

She, in a murderous

last rite anointed as fucking bitch

silenced by three bullets,

face awash in blood.

She, reduced

to an endless loop 

of twisted narratives

on the news circuits

while women cry out

again and again an endless

oh no, oh no, oh no.

—for Renee Nicole Good 

    (1989-2026)

Andrena Zawinski is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, most recently Born Under the Influence. Her work has been lauded for its appreciation of nature, spirituality, social concern, and craft. Her writing appears widely online and in print, including at Verse Daily. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, she has made her home on Alameda Island in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

BULLETS

by Andrena Zawinski

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School's 1200 building has been sealed since the massacre on February 14, 2018. On Thursday, jurors in the sentencing phase of the school shooter's trial walked through the undisturbed scene, where the blood of the victims still stains classroom floors. Bullet holes also mark the walls of the Parkland, Florida, school where Nikolas Cruz killed 14 students and three staff members. A lock of dark hair remains on a floor more than four years after the body of a victim was taken away. Valentine's Day gifts and cards are strewn about, as shards of glass crunched beneath of the feet of visitors. These are the unsettling notes from a group of reporters allowed to enter the building after jurors completed their walk-through to provide details to media outlets across the country, including CNN. —CNN, August 5, 2022

Bullets, 

their brassy caps 

glinting golden in the dark

ammo tray tucked under

a student study desk,

more bullets in a bandolier 

crisscrossing the chest, bullets

maneuvered across a screen

in slugs of anger and angst 

in bullet launchers, landmines 

of bullets, bullets of the slain 

in a shooting game.

Bullets,

their powder packed cartridges

of panic and fear, hollow points 

shattering identities, blasts 

sounding in sleep, bullets 

of grief from a spray hate. 

Bullets 

that silence at windows, on lawns, 

on street corners, in schoolrooms, 

supermarkets, factories, churches, 

all turned altars of flowers,

candles, placards, and prayers, 

while bullets 

fill bank accounts

of makers and regulators

dodging bullets whistling by,

shells jingling in pockets 

like loose change spent 

in puddles of blood.

Bullets, 

their full metal jackets 

dug from the corpse 

with its legacy of wounds, 

bullets that pierced the flesh, 

shattered the bone, riddled 

the heart and all the wild in it,

depositing dreams

to urns and coffins

buried in holes in the dirt,

screams smothered, 

breaths sealed.

Andrena Zawinski’s poetry has received accolades for lyricism, form, spirituality, and social concern. It has appeared in Artemis, Blue Collar Review, Progressive Magazine, Aeolian Harp, Rattle, Verse Daily, The New Verse News, and elsewhere. Her latest collection is Landings. She has two previous award winning books: Something About and Traveling in Reflected Light and a fourth collection, Born Under the Influence, forthcoming in 2022.

EMPTIED

 by Andrena Zawinski

The streets and playgrounds, the courts and fields are emptied. 

The string of row house swings emptied of coffee klatches 

across porch rails. Silence on cobbles glistening in morning dew, 

heady scent of honeysuckle wafting by windows we close. 

Framed by the limits of imagination, ears cocked to a sparrow’s song,

sun setting on pyramids, creek beds, ice floes, desert flowers 

past our views of the world, ghosts carousing night winds 

of our mourning, all the eyes on clear skies boasting stars above

moored cargo ships, snow capped peaks, the sweaty rainforests.

Our windows view the emptied harbors, farmlands and vineyards, 

fire escapes and stoops. All of it emptied of the large and small 

solitary pleasures of our fractured lives in this godawful air.

Andrena Zawinski’s poetry has received awards for lyricism, form, spirituality, social concern, many of them Pushcart Prize nominations. Her latest book is Landings (Kelsay Books); others are Something About (Blue Light Press PEN Oakland Award) and Traveling in Reflected Light (Pig Iron Press Kenneth Patchen Prize) along with several chapbooks. She founded and runs the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon and is a previous contributor to The New Verse News.

HAIBUN IN ANOTHER FIRE SEASON

by Andrena Zawinski

The smell of ash wakes me in my bed, burning

my nostrils and throat, midnight, as I dream

of water webbed lashes and a cool, damp face.

Diablo winds sling fiery plumes all night across

grapevines, redwoods, schoolhouses, ranches,

livestock and wildlife left behind, everything

trying to catch its breath.

In the gloom of gray hours before down, I write

these words without paper or pen a half wake state,

while winds whistle and howl across the dock,

through trees, into my open window and this poem

                                    stumbling ahead

                                    as this dawn struggles for breath

                                    tears blurring the eyes.

Andrena Zawinski’s poetry has received accolades for lyricism, form, spirituality, and social concern. Her latest book is Landings; others are Something About (a PEN Oakland Award) and Traveling in Reflected Light (a Kenneth Patchen Prize). She founded and runs the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon and is Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com. Her poem, “Twilit Sonnet” appeared previously in TheNewVerse.News.

TWILIT SONNET

by Andrena Zawinski

A homeless woman, her possessions, and her dog on Division Street. Image from Orange County Register via BrokeAssStuart.

In twilight’s dusky backstreets and muted alleys,
the dispossessed huddle for the evening
in boxes or sleeping bags, under freeways,
at doorways, inside storage bins. They retreat

to the bleak hum at the margins of byways
some babbling narratives or needling about,
others planning a way out, a way away,
wandering through fleeting corners of comfort.

Just one more night, like sparrows and pigeons,
they stake their place, tucking into themselves,
roosting deep into nooks along city ledges,      
inside cavities of trees. Once sheltered,                  

their public pieces of darkened parcels
eclipse beneath the wayward heavens.

Andrena Zawinski’s third and recently released poetry collection is Landings from Kelsay Books. Her poems have received accolades for free verse, form, lyricism, spirituality, and social concern. She is Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com, a Poetry Board member at The Literary Nest, and founder and organizer of the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon.