FOR GLORIA STEINEM

by Bonnie Proudfoot

Image by James Housand via Shutterstock

Goddam the boss’ hands,

the father’s tantrums, 

the mother’s tears, goddam

the glass ceiling, the broken

feeling, the casting couch 

and teacher’s pet, the face

slap, the butt pat, Phyllis Schlaffly

and June Cleaver, goddam

the eyes that stared at my

chest when I gave it my best,

the shoulder shrug, the what’s

it to you, the quid pro quo, the

that’s how it go, the go along

to get along, the pecking order,

the firing line, the patronizing,

the patriarchy, the aspirations,

the late ratifications, just

pass the damn Equal Rights

Amendment, and then

for the love of Gloria, Betty,

Bella, Shirley, and Dolly,

enforce the damn thing.

 

Bonnie Proudfoot used to read MS magazine as soon as it came out every month for free in the bookstore in the student union at the University of Buffalo. She pretended she was browsing. It was life-changing.

AMERICAN FLAG BLUE

by Bonnie Proudfoot

In the twilight of my life, I came 

to the history of indigo: color 

and currency, “a length of cloth 

in exchange for one human body.” 

The secrets to its cultivation known 

by Africans. “In the 1700’s profits 

outpaced those of sugar and cotton.” 

The first American flag stitched with 

indigo-dyed cloth. Wave a flag sewn 

by shackled fingers while the blue 

bruise thickens, seeps its way into today, 

stain of the past slumps in the corner 

of every classroom, pain threaded into 

every pledge, each anthem we sing. 

Now, 250 more years around the sun,

we’re waiting for the arc of the moral

universe to catch the freedom train,

but the station is empty, streetlights

have begun to fail, first one, then another, 

shadows lengthening while our ears

press the rails, listening for the thrum.

My country tis of thee, sweet land—

it’s twilight here in the heartland.

the indigo light dims and lingers.

 

 

Author’s note: Source of the poem’s quotations: Indigo: In Search of the Color that Seduced the World by Catherine McKinley.

Bonnie Proudfoot's fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in anthologies and journals, including Sheila-Na-Gig, SWWIM, Gyroscope Review, Rattle, The New Verse News, and the New Ohio Review, and have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart. Her novel Goshen Road(OU/ Swallow) received the WCONA Book of the Year and was long-listed for the PEN/ Hemingway. Poetry books include Household Gods, a chapbook, on Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, and Incomer, released in 2026 on Shadelandhouse Modern Press.

TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND BRAIN ROT

by Bonnie Proudfoot

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

Don’t tell me you spent all your allowance 

on comic books, or you used to stay up until 

daybreak, your knees shaping a tent under 

the covers, a weak flashlight, Superman, 

Supergirl, Batman, Spidey and the mutants, 

the whole gang rotting your brain, your eyes too. 

Did you stash your valor between the mattress 

and box spring, your rotting brain leaping tall buildings 

at a single bound, ready to keep evil at bay, fighting 

for, oh, truth, justice, and the American way.

 

Did you heft yourself out of bed on time 

for first period, or did your rotten brain let you 

snooze, then snooze some more? Did it make you 

listen to rock ‘n roll, sing "Sympathy for the Devil" 

as you walked to school? Did it know what 

"Satisfaction" really meant? And so what if 

your brain did rot? Blotchy, dark, and spongy, 

a not-so-fresh potato, or cottage cheese 

in the back of the fridge with curds of green mold 

lacing through? Would it rot all at once? Or 

one day no rot, one day riddled, one day a lot? 

 

So here you are, it’s minutes before midnight, 

kryptonite closing in, fascists tunnelling 

into Fort Knox, your knees a tent under 

the saggy covers, nothing left to lose. You’re 

scrolling through headlines at a single bound, 

seeking truth and seeking justice, index finger 

on your phone tapping with the dexterity 

of the Incredible Hulk threading a needle, 

the fate of the free world to defend,

secretly shouting Shazam, pushing send.

Bonnie Proudfoot's fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart. Her novel Goshen Road (OU Swallow Press) was the WCONA Book of the Year and long-listed for the PEN/ Hemingway. Household Gods a poetry chapbook, was published in 2022 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions). A full-length poetry collection, Incomer, is forthcoming on Shadelandhouse Modern Press. Bonnie resides in Athens, Ohio.

WE WANT A PRESIDENT

a wish list

by Bonnie Proudfoot in collaboration with Betsy Mars

We want a president who moves in down the street, 
spends a week or two. Even if we live in Flint, NOLA,
Hindman, Gallop, Butte, or the Bronx.
 
Who stands at the feet of a chalk line 
around victims of gun violence and weeps 
with families, friends, neighbors of the slain.
 
Who Faces the Nation and Meets the Press, 
This Week and other weeks as well.
 
Who flies Southwest economy class, 
rides the F train, buys local, birdwatches,
who saves the spotted owl, the monarch butterfly
the spotted salamander and the gopher frog. 
 
Who celebrates the 4th of July with poetry.
 
Who protects women who want to bring babies
Into the world and defends women who don't,
stands up for anyone facing gender-based rage,
who nurtures babies and spends time with children, 
not to teach them how to grow up faster 
but to teach herself how to imagine more.
 
Who pays taxes, declares gifts, keeps promises,
learns other languages, uses them. 
 
Who opens the White House doors to heads of
non-profits and legal aid groups, to teachers, 
911 dispatchers, brain surgeons, rocket scientists, 
actors, musicians, dancers, artists, farmworkers, 
bridge builders, smoke jumpers, border guards, 
police, soldiers, not just to donors or glitterati
 
Who recycles the plastic she picks up 
on shorelines and riverbeds. Who puts
solar panels on the roof of the White House and
charges her EV fleet. Who walks or bikes.
 
Who calls out sulfur leaching through creeks, 
fish floating belly up in lakes and rivers, 
the scraped-off mountaintops of Appalachia 
and all abominations to earth in the name of profit
 
Whose compassion breaks us open. 
Whose gravity weighs on us. Whose hope
holds us steady. Who laughs her ample laugh
shakes her womanly hips, hoists her groceries 
in an NPR tote bag, asks too many questions, 
dreams bigger than we ever could.
 
Who sits with Native American elders, 
holds an ear to the earth 
and listens.
 
 
Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, a photographer, and assistant editor at Gyroscope Review. whose poems can be found in numerous online journals and print anthologies. She has two books, Alinea, and In the Muddle of the Night, co-written with Alan Walowitz. Betsy is currently and sporadically working on a full-length manuscript titled Rue Obscure.

 
Bonnie Proudfoot writes fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays. Her novel, Goshen Road (OU/ Swallow Press) received WCONA’s Book of the Year and was Longlisted for the 2021 PEN/ Hemingway. Her 2022 poetry chapbook, Household Gods, can be found on Sheila-Na-Gig editions, along with a forthcoming book of short stories, Camp Probable. Bonnie resides in Athens, Ohio.

BEQUEATHED

 a golden shovel by Bonnie Proudfoot

No meaning but what we find here.

No purpose but what we make.

 

That, and the beloved’s clear instructions:

Turn me into song; sing me awake.

                               —Gregory Orr

 

 

Say you are at the supermarket, no

say you are at the farmer's market, meaning

you don't go in for plastic wrapped food, but

you bring your stringy hemp bag. How nice, but what

did you think, that one tomato at a time we

can stop climate change, find

a way to keep butterflies and songbirds here?

 

Say you'll install solar panels on your roof, no

say you've already installed them, your purpose

feels urgent, you are off the power grid, but

the sun feels stronger every day, what

you never expected was tornados, floods, we

can barely hold on to any progress we make. 

 

Today each weather warning lasts longer, that

way the window of safety shrinks, and

we huddle closer, protect ourselves, our beloved,

while lightning sparks, we wait for all to clear

though we need more time to prepare, instructions

 

to face this new future. The earth will turn

against us, beyond the ladders of light leaning into

the clouds, beyond the hymns and songs

to creation, show me a new song to sing,

not king coal, not drill baby oil, give me

more songbirds to hallelujah my grandchildren awake.

Bonnie Proudfoot is a poet, fiction writer, essayist, and reviewer whose work has appeared in online journals and anthologies. Her novel Goshen Road  (OU / Swallow Press) was longlisted for the PEN/ Hemingway and received the WCONA Book of the Year Award. Her recent book of poems Household Gods can be found on Sheila-Na-Gig Editions.

OH, ISRAEL

by Bonnie Proudfoot

Next Year in Jerusalem is said at the end of the Passover Seder. It is an ancient tradition that was first recorded by Isaac Tyrnau in the 15th century. Above art by Caren Garfen.

Oh, Israel, if my love is a suitcase, when I get to your house

I won't unpack, even though my mother and her mother,

my uncles and cousins are buried in pine boxes beneath

a star of David and our Rabbi wept for victims of the Holocaust,

 

cried for a homeland for the children of Zion. Yes, I used to feel

my chest swell open when I heard Hatikvah, yes, you've suffered,

people taken in sleep, in song, as they walked out of their homes.

I know you are perched on a precipice of strife. I too have felt

 

like a stranger in a strange land, my family holding our faith close

to shield us from hate or harm. Here, in the safety of my small

life, I see signs on the highway, a deer rearing up, a warning one

may careen across the road, but that isn't how it happens, not

 

right beside a road sign. When terror charged, you weren't

ready. I see stolen homes, stolen land. I see that hate calls out 

in darkness for more hate. Gazan families starve, pick through 

ashes to find bodies to bury while you shatter hospitals, shelters. 

 

I mean blood will stick to you, Israel. You shatter us too, we 

who were raised with a dream, who held you in the light each

Friday night. Two peoples, breath of one breath, voices raised to 

the same God. The more faith you steal, the less you'll keep.

Bonnie Proudfoot was raised in Queens, NY, and currently resides in Athens, Ohio. Her poetry has appeared previously in The New Verse News and many other fine journals and anthologies. Bonnie's first book of poems Household Gods was published by Sheila-Na-Gig editions, and her first novel Goshen Road was published by Swallow Press. It was named the WCONA Book of the Year and long-listed for the PEN/Hemingway Award.

JANUARY 28, 1986

by Bonnie Proudfoot

All morning we waited, the January air frigid and clear, 

"Come see," I said, pointing at the tv. You settled your 

not-quite 3-year-old body beside me on the corduroy couch, 

my belly swelling with your little brother not yet born.

You were my playmate, usually you told me who to be, 

sometimes you were Robin Hood and I was Maid Marian, 

mostly we were Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, 

but that day I called you the first spaceman, John Glenn, 

I was the first space woman, Christa McAuliffe, I pronounced, 

my teacher heart swelling, and then, you were leading me 

by the hand, into the capsule, we were waving to school children 

gathered to see the launch and even Tom Brokaw seemed 

to have his heart on his sleeve when he introduced 

mission control for the countdown, the lift off. 

 

On our couch from a mountaintop in West Virginia, 

surrounded only by the universe, we could almost see 

the Challenger capsule heading to that place beyond the sky, 

except, a jagged fork, that looked wrong, and then 

the waving stopped, hands covered mouths, children stood

in silence, and you looked up at me for answers 

I did not have. I'm sorry, I wanted to say. I'm sorry 

I called you over to watch with me, that you had 

to see this. Again and again, the tv replayed the lift off, 

as if, if they showed us once more, it would go differently. 

 

But no, the small streak of light, the speck of fire. Sometimes it takes 

so long to figure out what I want to tell you, even longer to know 

which words to use, and now, 35 years later, deep-sea divers find 

sets of Challenger tiles on the ocean floor, like pennies dropped 

into an infinite well. Oh, my boy, now man, now father, 

sometimes what you long for will disappoint you, and sometimes 

what you love will rise because of your love, and you'll rise too. 

All afternoon, on our little speck of earth, death walked 

beside us, his index finger waggling, a broken branch, 

and we did the only thing we could, we walked down the lane, 

gathered warm eggs from the hens, picked up limbs the wind

had flung onto the road, all eyes scanning the empty sky for signs

Bonnie Proudfoot has published fiction, poetry and essays. Her first novel Goshen Road (Swallow Press, 2020) was selected by the Women’s National Book Association for Great Group Reads, was long-listed for the PEN/ Hemingway Award, and received the WCONA Book of the Year Award. Her poetry chapbook Household Gods was published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in 2022. She lives in Athens, Ohio, and in her spare time she creates glass art and plays blues harmonica. 

OUR PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINEES

“Table For One” 
by Bonnie Proudfoot
Published February 15, 2022
 
“Kyiv/San Francisco” 
by Susan Gubernat 
Published March 1, 2022
 
“Before I Knew Adam Had Died” 
by Susan Vespoli 
Published March 20, 2022

“Territory”
by David Chorlton
Published August 12, 2022

“New Fossils” 
by Dustin Michael
Published September 23, 2022

“Crystal Ball” 
by Laura Rodley
Published November 11, 2022

COLORING BOOK WITH SECRET SUPERHEROES

by Bonnie Proudfoot

This is a coloring book without lines.

This is a coloring book where Jane

wears any clothing she feels like

wearing and so does Dick, and both

of them won’t carry a gun. In this book

guns aren’t invented. Still, this book

is full of action figures, girl ones and boy ones

Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel

and Doctor Strange and Harley Quinn, ones

who move in light, and ones who delight

in mayhem. All the superheroes use their powers

to keep sharp things out of babies’ reach,

even though they shine. There’s a secret superhero

you can find her if you look, and it is you, 

this is a book that claps for you, who can

almost roll over, who has never worn

a shoe, who can eat her bare feet,

who marched at six months of age,

well, sort of marched, for women’s choice.

This is a coloring book that says it’s ok,

use all the colors, be who you are, it hopes

you see the light that shines through your light

gray eyes, a book that looks like a mirror of love,

that smells like your breath that is a mirror

of milk, that marvels at the impressionist

masterpiece that is your diaper after eating

peas and beets, and that is only something

a nana would say, yes yes, this book

has another secret superhero, NanaMan,

who has the power to stop a gun from firing

at a supermarket or a school or a church

or synagogue, Nanaman is the conscience

of the world, or some kind of weird spirit,

don’t ask me how she/he works. The book knows

that babies are born into light, they come

here with all the colors that they need, and

when the pages of the book are clasped shut

it prays that the world does not start

taking those colors away too soon. 

Bonnie Proudfoot has had fiction and poetry published in the Gettysburg Review, Kestrel, Sheila-Na-Gig, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, SoFloPoJo, and other journals. Her first novel Goshen Road was published by Swallow Press in January of 2020, and was  long-listed for the 2021 PEN/ Hemingway award for debut fiction. Her debut book of poems Household Gods (Sheila-Na-Gig Press) will be published in the summer of 2022.

TABLE FOR ONE

by Bonnie Proudfoot

Warm some olive oil, let it spread  

slowly across the bottom of a saucepan,

sauté chopped garlic, watch bubbles form 

around the edge of each morsel,

chop red pepper, some mushrooms,

some onions, use bite sized pieces, watch 

them soften, watch the onions turn 

golden, use vegetables so fresh 

that they offer up their essence 

to the sauce, add some chopped tomatoes, 

crush basil leaves between your palms, 

add a dash of red wine, fresh ground pepper, 

meanwhile bring salted water to a rolling boil,

add vermicelli or linguini, stir as the steam

fills the air, inhale. Then one by one

subtract the smells, the extra virgin olive oil,

the garlic infusion, onion, mushrooms,

the tomatoes ripe and juicy, 

the warm semolina, shaved parmesan, 

subtract the taste too, so the pasta

tastes like paper, the sauce, some warmish swill,

the vegetables add a bland kind of texture,

something to chew on, softer than stones,

sort of, the red wine is not worth the cost,

not really worth the trouble of decanting,

swirling. Subtract the guests at the table, 

add candles where they used to sit, 

relatives, neighbors, doctors and nurses, 

songwriters, teachers, students, bartenders,

barbers, and servers, 900,000 Americans.

Feed the birds, set the table for one,

watch clouds move across the sky,

say Mass, say Kaddish, say Grace,

try to remember how it used to taste.

 

 

Bonnie Proudfoot’s fiction and poetry has appeared in The New Verse News, Rattle Poets Respond, and in many journals. Her novel Goshen Road (Swallow Press, 2020) was selected by the WNBA for its Great Group Reads and long-listed for the 2021 PEN/ Hemingway award. Her first chapbook of poems, Household Gods (Sheila-Na-Gig Press), is forthcoming in  Summer of 2022. 

HAMMER

by Bonnie Proudfoot

Members of United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) picket outside the BlackRock headquarters in New York City. Photo: Brendan McDermid/Reuters via New York Magazine, January 20, 2022.

Unionization efforts involving some of the most recognizable names in business have dominated headlines across the United States in recent months. Starbucks workers in Buffalo and Amazon employees in Bessemer, Ala., and on Staten Island have recently moved to unionize, as have workers at an REI store in Manhattan last week. Successful strikes at John Deere and Kellogg have drawn new attention to the state of the labor movement as well. —The New York Times, January 25, 2022

The first tool I ever bought was a hammer

at Western Auto in the Central Park Plaza,

in Buffalo, in 1974. I liked the feel of it,

not too light, not too heavy, oak handle,

a pretty grain. I liked the idea of having

a tool. I wanted to hang posters, to fix things,

a stuck window that needed a tap, a carpet runner

that curled on a stair tread. I liked how the metal head

went tink, tink, tonk as a nail sunk deeper 

into wood. It said power, power, power.

These days, the handle still fits my palm,

the wood has darkened, smooth as skin,

tough as bone, like the forearm of my grandfather,

a union man, steady and tanned, a guy

who’d drop everything to lend a hand

to anyone. When he died, I chose his scroll-saw

and drill, some chisels with steel blades that

I’ve used well and misused, too, by whacking them

instead of tapping, by going against the grain. Nothing

can fix everything, though sometimes I want to be a hammer,

to use extra force to make emphatic the connection

between mind and thing. Sometimes one hit

is not enough, I want to hear a chorus of power, power.

I want to be a chisel, too, a sharp one. A union

can be a hammer, a contract can be a nail,

collective bargaining, shared governance, chisels.

Ideas can be hammered on until they strengthen,

nailed down, or shaved and honed. Power, power.

I’m twenty years older than my Western Auto hammer.

I’m still learning what to try to fix, what tool to choose.

I know the task is the real teacher. When I look out

at this broken world, I still see my grandfather,

his steady arm, his sure aim, how right it sounds

when it all comes together, when it all works. 

Bonnie Proudfoot lives in Athens, Ohio. She has belonged to several unions in her life, most recently the Ohio Education Association. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in online and print journals, and her novel Goshen Road (Swallow Press, 2020) was Longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction in 2021.

SHACKLED

In the wake of growing outrage over the role the Sacklers may have played in the opioid crisis, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Sackler family jointly announced on Thursday that the Sackler name would be removed from seven exhibition spaces, including the wing that houses the Temple of Dendur. —The New York Times, December 9, 2021

Bonnie Proudfoot has had fiction and poetry published in the Gettysburg Review, Kestrel, Sheila-Na-Gig, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, and other journals. Her first novel Goshen Road (Swallow Press, 2020) was selected by the Women’s National Book Association for one of its Great Group Reads for 2020.  The novel was also long-listed for the 2021 PEN/ Hemingway award for debut fiction.

OUTLIER

by Bonnie Proudfoot

Cartoon by Clay Jones

Outside, the chirping of birds is erased

by sirens and the latest newsfeed delivers

the latest news, the camera goes back

to school for this one, what a bitch,

some shy 15-year-old, his heart tethered

to his gun, uses lead for his brand of graffiti,

he wants to be a daredevil, a showstopper,

a level up in the (anti-) social strata

Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland,

new codes for manhood. Maybe

he was always an outlier,

maybe instead of a pet ocelot,

his dad bought him a Black Friday pistol,

he posts his picture on Facebook the next day

some ephemeral way to prove that

someone loves him.

 

In the hallway, the slaughter.

Bullets crisscross the walls,

Bodies left to bleed out on the floor,

outside a classroom door,

a voice calls, It’s ok, bro,

it’s the police you can come out now,

But the other students

have too much skin in the game,

stagger out the back window, shake. We

see the flowers, a few more crosses

on the roadway, messages of what’s

at stake. Meanwhile in America,

Kyle Rittenhouse walks free,

Parkland students protested,

but some in the US Congress denied

that shooting even happened. We

will see gun sales spike before Christmas,

Today, it’s hunting season in Ohio,

shots ring out in the woods,

the birds become silent. Sometimes I

can’t tell where the shots are coming from,

where they are headed.

Bonnie Proudfoot is a recipient of a Fellowship for the Arts in Creative Writing from the West Virginia department of Culture and History, and has had fiction and poetry published in The Gettysburg Review, Kestrel, Sheila-Na-Gig, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, and other journals. Her first novel, Goshen Road, was published by Swallow Press in January of 2020, and was selected by the Women’s National Book Association for one of its Great Group Reads for 2020.  The novel was also long-listed for the 2021 PEN/ Hemingway award for debut fiction.