SURVIVOR

by Ginny Lowe Connors

As of August 27, there had been 44 school shootings this year alone.

And then today...

No poem, no melody can ever drown out

the sounds that follow this child,

the pop pop of an automatic weapon,

screams of classmates,

friend, blabbermouth, violinist,

pencil-chewer, joker, soccer champ—

each one turned into a victim photo

on the evening news.

 

No cartoon, no billboard can ever block out

the sights that haunt this child,

the boy who fell on top of him, how he shook

and went still, the teacher shielding two girls

with her own body, the book on the floor,

pages slowly turning red.

 

How do we hold him,

how do we shelter

his splintered glass heart?

 

This is an American story

that has no end. A ten-year-old

goes to school one day and returns home,

just blinking and blinking.

He no longer speaks.

Ginny Lowe Connors is the author of six poetry collections, the most recent of which is White Sail at Midnight. Among her awards are the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, Atlanta Review’s Grand Prize, the NFSPS Founders Award, Passager Poetry Contest Winner, and Poet of the Year (New England Association of Teachers of English). She holds an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. As publisher of her own press, Grayson Books, Connors has edited several poetry anthologies. A Board Member of the Connecticut Poetry Society, she is also Managing Editor of Connecticut River Review.

WE LIKE OUR FREEDOM

by Ginny Lowe Connors

And our steaks—we like them rare.

Our vengeance bloody and loud. Lightning bolts

aimed at the heart. That thrill. That satisfaction

when our rage explodes.

 

Ask the six-year-olds of Sandy Hook.

Ask their parents. Or anyone from Ulvalde.

Ask the stuffed bunny left behind

on the bed, one ear bent and frayed.

 

Tissue paper parachutes

drifting over the wastelands of our freedom—

that’s what the prayers became

of those in the Pittsburgh synagogue

and in the Fort Worth Baptist Church.

 

Nobody asks about the anonymous workers

who come in afterward to clean up the blood.

In the schools, the churches, the nightclubs.

The homes, the offices. Grocery stores.

That sludge, that slurry of hatred, cold sweat, malice—

how long must the smell of it linger?

 

I myself cannot eat steak. I cannot free myself

from the vision of a little boy racing a school bus. 

Something is happening to the field of wildflowers

I used to carry in my chest, asters and daisies, bees.

Summer sunlight. I’m full of holes.

The hummingbirds are escaping.

 

 

Ginny Lowe Connors taught English in a public secondary school for many years. She is the author of four full-length poetry collections, including her latest poetry book Without Goodbyes: From Puritan Deerfield to Mohawk Kahnawake (Turning Point, 2021). Her chapbook Under the Porch won the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, and she has earned numerous awards for individual poems. She is co-editor of Connecticut River Review and runs a small poetry press, Grayson Books.

NEWS FROM LATE OCTOBER

by Ginny Lowe Connors

Trees still holding their leaves

look all the more brilliant

as their colors flame

against an overcast sky.

The day is nearly windless.

Still, spirals of leaves

gold, russet, scarlet

sail toward the ground all day.

Silent as snowflakes, they fall.

 

In our country, 856 people

died of the coronavirus just yesterday.

Ginny Lowe Connors is the author of several poetry collections, including Toward the Hanging Tree: Poems of Salem Village.  Her chapbook Under the Porch won the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize. Connors has also edited a number of poetry anthologies. She is the co-editor of Connecticut River Review. Connors runs a small poetry press, Grayson Books.