MY PRAYERS FOR HOSTAGES DIDN'T END WHEN MY PRAYERS FOR PEACE BEGAN

by Laurie Rosen

With college campuses seized by conflict over the war, is there anywhere for students who don’t want to choose a side to turn? Image by Yoav Einhar. —Forward, December 6, 2023

For every child kidnapped, 
burned, bombed 

I believe there is someone 
on both sides grieving 

the pain of the other, 
hearing cries from the other,

growing wary 
of taking sides. 

For every yes, but someone is saying 
this is true and so is this,

Elu v’elu divrei Elohim chayim: 
these and these.   

For every life displaced,
beaten, brutalized 

I believe in the hope 
of two hands holding

multiple truths,
two hands plowing a path 

for compassion and peace. 

Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poetry has appeared in Peregrine, Gyroscope Review, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, The Inquisitive Eater: a journal of The New School, One Art, and elsewhere. Laurie won first place in poetry at the 2023 Marblehead, MA Festival of the Arts.

DEAR JASON ALDEAN

by Laurie Rosen

In my little town there were

moms at home doing laundry,

schools we could walk to,

one car in every driveway, sometimes two. 

Our neighborhoods teemed with children —

kick ball or wiffle ball in the middle of the street.

There was a bowling alley, ice cream parlor

and golf driving range, 

In my little town there were teachers 

who required us to memorize poems, 

write haikus, read Icarus, Hiroshima,

Shakespeare and the Bible. 

And in my little town, a football coach taught 

health class. A young teacher who spoke

openly on the VietNam war, civil rights 

and the slaughter of indigenous people

was disappeared, replaced

by an elderly retired teacher who bored us 

with dates and white washed facts,

screamed at us to pay attention. 

Our only lake, once a summer retreat, 

was declared a Superfund waste site. 

There was rampant drug and alcohol abuse, 

breast cancer, brain tumors, overdoses and suicides. 

In my little town, mostly white and Christian,

we sang China Town is Burning down, 

during recess, to the tune of ring-around-the-rosy 

at the one Chinese American boy 

in our third grade class, who stood

off to the side, while we held hands 

and skipped round and round.

Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poetry has appeared in The Muddy River Poetry Review, Peregrine, Oddball Magazine, Gyroscope Review, The New Verse News, The Inquisitive Eater: a journal of  The New School, One Art, and elsewhere.

MY DAUGHTER, A HISTORY AND HOLOCAUST EDUCATOR, SAYS IT’S IMPORTANT WE BEAR WITNESS; WE BOTH KNOW IT’S NOT ENOUGH

by Laurie Rosen

Two days after their daughter, Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio, was shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas, Kimberly Rubio and her husband are urging elected officials to pass restrictive gun laws to help prevent future tragedies. “We live in this really small town in this red state, and everyone keeps telling us, you know, that it’s not the time to be political, but it is—it is,” Ms. Rubio said, her voice breaking through tears. “Don’t let this happen to anybody else.” Their family was contacted by Gov. Greg Abbott’s office on Wednesday, she said, and asked if they would be willing to meet with the governor. Ms. Rubio and her husband declined. —The New York Times, May  26, 2022. Photo: People visit a memorial for the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 28, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas, United States. Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images via CHRON

He lays still, pretends to be dead. 

He frantically calls his mom from his classroom,

she hides under a desk, covers herself with her dying friend’s blood,

she whispers on the phone to 911, send police,

he hears a bullet crack his friend’s nose.  

She hears a cop shout to her, yells help, gives away 

her hiding spot, then promptly succumbs to gunshot. 

A husband dies broken-hearted two days after his wife perishes 

by gunfire—four children, left parentless.  

A mother’s son never returns home.

A father’s daughter, a cousin, a nephew, never return home. 

This is not a war zone/This is a war zone/We live in a war zone.

Our children grow up in a war zone, are taught to escape killers, guns

and madmen/Our children learn they won’t escape madmen with guns, 

that bullets meant for war pierce metal doors, tear off locks. 

Bullets ravage the faces and bodies of teachers and best friends, forever haunt 

survivors' dreams––nightmares of pooling blood and mangled flesh.

Our children promise to stay still and quiet/If only they stayed still enough, quiet enough. 

I did good Mommy, I stayed still, I stayed quiet.  

A lifelong New Englander, Laurie Rosen’s poetry has appeared in The Muddy River Poetry Review, Oddball Magazine, Zig-Zag Lit Mag, Peregrine, The New Verse News, Gyroscope Review, and elsewhere.

WHOSE STORY? WHOSE CHOICE?

by Laurie Rosen

Cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz/AMS via The Washington Post.

I am 35, 

I am 19, 

I am 12. 

Put a bounty on my head,

on my confidants and advisers

my doctor, too. 

Sue the office administrators,

the taxi driver that brought me.

Come for me with handcuffs.

Restrain my arms behind my back,

haul me off to jail.

Lock me up behind bars, 

Throw away the key.

Call me a murderer, baby killer. 

Selfish, hateful. 

I plead guilty. I don’t deny it. 

But, look me in the eyes 

and tell me I am not speaking 

your story or your lover’s,

your sister’s, your best friend’s,

maybe even your daughter’s. 

I am 35, mark my body   state controlled,  

I am 19, proclaim my uterus   conscripted,

I am 12, classify my heartbeat   irrelevant.

Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poems have appeared in Sisyphus, The Muddy River Poetry Review, Oddball Magazine, Soul-Lit, The New Verse News, and elsewhere. 

HE CALLED FOR HIS MAMA

by Laurie Rosen

When I gave birth to my son without the aid 

of narcotics or an epidural, pain searing, I called 

for my Mama. A grown woman, already a Mama 

and I called for mine. 

It wasn’t something I planned, the cry shot out 

my grimaced mouth, my husband sitting by my side, 

a nurse coaching me on. I shouted for my Mama 

because somewhere in my subconscious I believed 

no one else but my Mama could relieve me of my pain.  

Not even the man who loves me could do that. 

When I heard George Floyd called for his Mama,

(not his girlfriend or brother) I thought, Of course he did. 

Who else but a Mama might rescue a son from the grip

of a cop determined to strangle the life out of him?  

And when I learned Duante Wright called his Mama,

just before a cop shot him dead, I imagined him reaching

for his Mama. Who else but a Mama would lay their body 

across a son to shield him from the bullet 

they both knew was coming. 

Laurie Rosen is a lifelong New Englander. Her poems have appeared in The London Reader, Muddy River Poetry Review, Beach Reads (an anthology from Third Street Writers), Peregrine, Oddball Magazine, and other journals.