SALT AND IRON

by Julia Ross

Kenneth Eugene Smith appeared to convulse and shake vigorously for about four minutes after the nitrogen gas apparently began flowing through his full-face mask in Alabama's death chamber. It was another two to three minutes before he appeared to lose consciousness, all while gasping for air to the extent that the gurney shook several times. Smith was declared dead at 8:25 p.m. Thursday, and Alabama had become the first state to use nitrogen gas to execute a human… In 2022, Smith was strapped to the gurney to be executed by lethal injection, but prison officials could not gain access to his veins for the two IV lines before the death warrant expired and the execution process was halted. —Montgomery Advertiser, January 25, 2024. Italicized lines in the poem printed below are drawn from this article by Marty Roney. Above photo: The Rev. Jeff Hood, an Arkansas-based pastor and the spiritual adviser who was in the execution chamber with Mr. Smith, challenged the idea that the execution had gone as officials anticipated. Edward D. Fountain for The New York Times.

Credit...Credit...“It was appalling,” said Deborah Denno, an expert on execution methods at Fordham University Law School. “Pain for two to four minutes, particularly when you’re talking about somebody who’s suffocating to death — that’s a really long period of time and a torturous period of time.” 

The reverend made the sign

of the cross several times

as his condemned friend writhed,

ribs escaping chest in search of breath. 

The first time they were here

there was no mask, no plastic tubing.

They could lock eyes as the best

phlebotomists in the state tried 

and tried to kill him. Imagine that:

clemency in the form of blown veins.    

Divinity school did not prepare him 

for this. Lazarus who was raised

just to die again got to slip away 

both times in the warmth of arms    

while his buddy died tethered, 

wrists and ankles to the gurney,

nose and mouth to the wall

from which the nitrogen flowed

like salt and iron through a blood-

red sea. It was enough to bring you back

to certainty. The reverend removed 

his eyeglasses and wiped away tears,

knowing this time he would walk out—

sure, with God—but profoundly alone.

Julia Ross lives in Austin, TX. She writes about parenthood and about the sociopolitical hellscape known as Texas.

THE BLACK HUMMINGBIRD

by Alejandro Escudé

Why all the gray skies [in Southern California]? It's a reasonable question with a fairly complex answer that we find ourselves asking yearly when they show up and stick around for a few months. Known as May Gray and June Gloom, the period’s a sign of transition from cool winter weather to scorching summer temperatures. —LAist, May 19, 2023. Photo: Ushering in June Gloom near Santa Ynez, California on June 01, 2020. | George Rose/Getty Images via KCET.

The grayness of May isn’t subtle.

It weighs on the birds too, erasing the landmarks.

I notice that my sight changes, eyes have a stalkier bond

To the naked mind—what is that about?

I exit my apartment, crossing the threshold of my door,

And the hallway is blue, chilly, despite the seventy degrees.

I need my poetry heroes to Lazarus from their graves

And deliver me back to my old selves, the dozens of poets

That came before this one who writes only gray verse.

But its always been the black hummingbird that flitted 

Through the glass of my window at the Catholic retreat 

I attended two years after my son was born.

I obeyed the order of silence. At twilight, I made my way

Past the Victorian lamp posts along the garden paths

To the dining hall. And we prayed before and after dinner.

When I returned home, the hummingbird followed.

I ask a coworker: does the gray sky affect your mood?

It is kind of dark, he says, missing the mark.

The grayness lasts so that even the darkness of night is gray.

I shift in my rocky bed, the hours graying into more hours.

You can live this way, you know, many years,

Reading between the testament folds of the colorless clouds,

Seeking something beyond the stormy horizon 

You have come to expect—that gray, prodigious god.

Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

A SHADOW IS BORN

by Alejandro Escudé


Sep 30, 2015 · by Rob Stein and Eyder Peralta

From 

Couple Spends $100,000 To Clone Deceased Dog, Gets Two Puppies 

—HuffPost Science, Dec. 28, 2015

A chance to wipe
The death-slate
Clean,

And raise a clone.
We might dictate
Morals of old
But none do hold,

The messiah
Willing to pry a life
From the mouth
Of god.

I gaze at
My bloody feet,
The dust, having wandered
The desert,

A rueful act.
One traitor equals
One billion

With minds set
To explode or be
Appeased.

Holding a shadow
Should be
A harrowing thing,

To feel the body
There, only to witness
The darkness.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems, My Earthbound Eye, in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.