TRUE COLORS

by Julie Steiner

"Refugees Welcome" by Omar Ab Abdallat

A Haitian family's asylum case shows double standard at the border: It took three doctors, a small team of lawyers and multiple nonprofits on both sides of the border to get an exemption for a Haitian family seeking asylum in the United States… Border officials have routinely granted exemptions to Ukrainian nationals while subjecting asylum seekers from other countries to much more scrutiny. That included the Haitian family, who had to wait almost four months to get an exemption. Advocates said their case underscores just how arbitrary and unfair the country’s asylum system is right now. —KPBS, April 5, 2022

We’re opening our hearts and homes and wallets.

We’ve got donations piling up on pallets

for families in flight from bombs and bullets—

their frightened faces traumatized and pale. It’s

inspiring, seeing decency at work.

It’s proof the world’s not totally berzerk.

When strangers need our help, we never shirk

our duty. (If their faces aren’t too dark.)

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Besides The New Verse News, the venues in which Julie's poetry has appeared include the Able Muse Review, Rattle, Light, and The Asses of Parnassus.

THE WORLD IS FULL OF WAR AGAIN

by Penelope Scambly Schott

More than 100 people have drowned in the Central Mediterranean in one week while at least 130 others have been forcibly returned to Libya. In the same week, MSF teams rescued 113 people from a rubber boat that was taking on water. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) condemns Italy and Malta’s failure to assist boats in distress and urges Frontex and other European vessels in the area to reveal the circumstances of these tragic events.  —Médecins Sans Frontières, April 6, 2022

No, the world is always full of war.

The thing is, this time it’s white people

killing white people, so we pay attention.

When it’s those people with darker skin

and we’re not sure exactly where they live,

we pay less attention. Can you point

to Ethiopia on a map? But really,

what good does our attention do? I mail

my pittance to Doctors Without Borders

on my way to shop at Safeway. Am I being

cruel? Yesterday I listened to my friend

lament for an hour on the phone.

I brought homemade bread to the neighbor

who calls it date night at the cemetery

when he brings a chair to his wife’s grave.

And look at me here with my fresh coffee

in a mug with dancing dogs. Don’t I think

I'm just so goddamn kind?

Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Her newest book is On Dufur Hill, poems about the cycle of the year in a small wheat-growing town.