TRAJECTORY

by Carol Dorf

The problem set gives us: a stone, force, an angle.
Given this, predict when the stone will hit the ground.
Outside the book this problem grows more complex
even if there are no dragons to interfere with the trajectory.
Imagine a missile. No don’t. There’s no need to imagine:
haven’t you opened the paper today? Imagine a war
where children’s bodies form the location of the necessary
violence. Don’t authorities always say necessary?

Imagine or don’t the intersection between a missile
and an apartment block. The shoes, the plates,
a shelf full of exploded books. Imagine a graveyard,
damp with morning fog, petrichor rising, pollinators
slipping past the plastic flowers hungry for something real.
Imagine picking up a stone, two stones, and placing them
on a grave, where the story of nothing special here
is more important than a name, than the dates below.


Carol Dorf is a Zoeglossia fellow, whose poetry has been published in several chapbooks and in journals that include The New Verse News, About Place, Cutthroat, Unlikely Stories, Rise Up Review, Great Weather For Media, Slipstream, The Mom Egg, Sin Fronteras, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Scientific American, and Maintenant. They are founding poetry editor of Talking Writing, and taught math in Berkeley.

NO, TWILIGHT AND THE LAW

by Carol Dorf

The House voted on Thursday to pass a GOP-led bill that would ban transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports at federally funded schools and educational institutions. The bill is not expected to be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House has issued a veto threat. But the vote shows that Republicans are working to spotlight the issue – and it comes amid a GOP-led push in states across the country to pass similar bills restricting transgender athletes’ participation in sports. The final vote was 219-203 down strict party lines. —CNN, April 20, 2023. Photo: People attend a rally as part of a Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31 in Washington, DC. Credit: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

I tell my child
No, twilight is a given
I can’t slow the day’s passage to night
In the photo of the boardwalk through the swamp 
I support my child
as they lean back to look up at the trees
in a inversion of flight
For a while we called
it the Rumplestilskin phase
toddler jumping up and down in fury
Luckily the old oak floor held solid
There are so many things
about the world I would change for you if I could
though I wouldn’t do anything about the dogs
in costumes participating in the Pride Parade
And then—You travelled to the Pride Parade
wearing wings—with friends who also found
wings to celebrate and now you are all flown
All these laws that are disrupting
your flight path—Not in my backyard
but I’ll do my best

Carol Dorf is a Zoeglossia fellow, whose poetry has been published in three chapbooks. Her poetry has also appeared in previous issues of The New Verse News as well as in About Place, Cutthroat, Wordpeace, Unlikely Stories, Slipstream, The Mom Egg, Sin Fronteras, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Scientific American, and Maintenant. She is founding poetry editor of Talking Writing.

OUR DICTATOR

by Carol Dorf

Art by Adrian Teal

When the young ask “Why
did you let it go on so long?”
they have forgotten

an essential fact—he was
our dictator—small fingers,

and disconnected
speech rhythms of our crazy
uncles raging on.

Carol Dorf has three chapbooks available, Given (Origami Poems), Some Years Ask (Moria Press), and Theory Headed Dragon (Finishing Line Press). Her poetry appears in Shofar, About Place, Great Weather For Media, Slipstream, The Mom Egg, Sin Fronteras, Heresies, Feminist Studies, Scientific American, and Maintenant. She is poetry editor of Talking Writing. She is interested in the intersections between poetry, disability, science and parenting. 

SOME YEARS ASK

by Carol Dorf

Some years ask, "Which side are you on?"
You might answer, "I'm on the side of the bees,
and the waters rising against the coastal shores."
You listen to a debate, and wonder, "Have I been
clear. Or I'm ok about reading dystopias, but
don't think I live in one, and don't want to find
myself there." I'm on the side of the kindergarten
children who tumble together on the rug, eager
for a story, after eating school lunches portioned
onto small trays. I'm on the side of the whales
who need quiet to hear each other calling across
the sea. And I'm on the side of the fat women,
and the crips, and every contractor who wanted
to be paid. "Which side are you on?" is
the refrain, while the future echoes on the screen.


Carol Dorf's chapbook Theory Headed Dragon is available through Finishing Line Press. Her poetry has been published in Glint, Slipstream, Spillway, Sin Fronteras, Antiphon, Composite, About Place, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Scientific American, Maintenant, OVS Best of Indie Lit New England, and elsewhere. She is poetry editor of Talking Writing and teaches mathematics.