TO ALL THE IMPRISONED CHILDREN

by Julie Weiss

Hold on. You´re a rabbit, clever

and bold, galloping free through

tomorrow´s boundless grasslands.

Hold on. You´re the most extraordinary

lotus, blooming through cracks

in your country´s polar ice caps.

Hold on. They may have grounded

your body, but your mind

can fly a thousand glorious kites

in the rising winds of resistance.

Your will, sharp enough to slice

a prison guard´s insults into fluff.

Hold on. Right now, you may feel

more like a beetle climbing

a mountain under a crush of boots

than anything human, but you´re not

alone. You´re the song we sing

when the notes in our throat

have lumped impossibly together.

You´re the rainbow colors we use

to airbrush our hope across the sky.

You’re the poem we bellow at every

demonstration. Imagine! Your beauty

flowing in epic proportions.

You´re our brightest star, the one

that anchors us to our place

in the universe. Hold on. Without you,

we´d all be hurled deep into space.

Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II. Her second collection Rooming with Elephants was published in February, 2025. She was a finalist for Best of the Net, won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award, and was a finalist for the Saguaro Prize. Recent work appears in ONE ART, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Gyroscope Review, and is forthcoming in Cimarron Review, The Indianapolis Review, MER, and SWWIM. She lives with her wife and children in Spain. 

SURVIVOR’S GUILT II

by Julie Weiss

Photo by Seema Miah at Unsplash

It snowed last night, an unusual

enough flurry in our part of Spain

to make the news. Downstairs,

my children pelt each other

with snowballs, their voices

all sparkle and windchime.

The sky, though gray, has no

reason to grieve. I stack dishes

in the sink, sweep up crumbs,

grumble, because who doesn´t

grumble about housework?

If a bang knocks a flock of birds

off course, I assume it´s a car

backfiring, no need to scramble

outside in pajamas, search

the snow for blood. It´s easy

to chide your children for tracking

mud inside when a government

thug isn´t kicking down your door.

Easy to indulge in a cup of hot cocoa,

extra marshmallows please, when

your neck isn´t crushed under

a state-sponsored knee. Tomorrow,

they´ll shove another child into

an unmarked van. Another child´s

mother will vanish, or die. Here,

far from my homeland, the sidewalks

will have frozen over. We´ll glide

to school, graceful as skaters,

hoping not to break any bones

on the hard, hard ice.

Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II. Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, was published in February, 2025. "Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children" was a finalist for Best of the Net, she won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for "Cumbre Vieja," and she was a finalist for the Saguaro Prize. Recent work appears in ONE ART, Stone Circle Review, Gyroscope Review, and is forthcoming in Cimarron Review and MER. She lives with her wife and children in Spain.

SURVIVOR’S GUILT

by Julie Weiss

“4-year-old migrant girl, other kids go to court in NYC with no lawyer: 'The cruelty is apparent.’” —Gothamist, April 22, 2025

We order mile-high hamburgers,

chicken fingers for the kids,

clink glasses as if the world

isn´t spiraling toward some terrible

demise. There aren´t enough colors

in the complimentary crayon box

to draw the dread prowling

my body, or the howls

of all the people being erased

so I praise my children´s

artwork as if their puppies

and bunnies could charm

the shit off the lips of fascists.

They drag fries through ketchup.

Every analogy on our plates

is a choking hazard. Somewhere

in a country that´s being stripped,

shaved, and tortured, a child

who once celebrated a birthday,

a victory, a graduation, an award

at a restaurant like this one

is being dragged into an unmarked

van. My daughter´s medal glistens

my grief back to me. I blame

the onions, a speck of dust,

yesterday´s pollen. I don´t say

your surnames could get you

arrested, if you lived in the US.

We laugh at the latest memes

as if the faces weren´t fireballs

waiting for the right moment

to mushroom. As if the biggest  

aggravation today is the rain.

Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay books, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II, published by Bottlecap Press. Her second collection Rooming with Elephants was published in February, 2025 by Kelsay Books. "Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children" was selected as a 2023 finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for "Cumbre Vieja" and was a finalist for the 2022 Saguaro Prize. Recent work appears in Variant Lit, The Westchester Review, Up The Staircase Quarterly, and others. Originally from California, she lives with her wife and children in Spain.