AT THE SANTA ANITA RACETRACK

by Linda Stryker

Santa Anita Park in Arcadia said a horse died “suddenly” over the weekend on its training track, making it the sixth fatality this year. The 6-year-old named Double Touch died on Saturday, according to the racetrack. The exact cause of the horse’s death was unknown and results from a necropsy were pending, officials said. —KTLA, February 11, 2020. File photo, above, of Double Touch provided by Zoe Metz Photography to Horse Racing Nation.

Amazing     euphoria
all over my face

I am fifteen
driving a car

My Dad teaches me
the brake     the gears

how to stop     how to turn
how to make hand signals

at the Track parking lot
now empty of cars

My Mom had taken me there
to watch the whirlwind races

charging horses     jockeys
whipping       hounding

Weeks later       near home
I drove toward a paper bag

Don’t run over it     Dad said
it might have kittens inside

Advice     admonishment
image forever implanted

Of course     all that was
an ancient moon’s age ago

I did not know back then
about the numerous deaths

at the Santa Anita track
where      on average

fifty horses die     shot
each year of my life

Should I mention     so many
other world racetracks

I used to recall      driving
at the Santa Anita Racetrack

But now     all I can think about
are              dead horses

Linda Stryker writes from Phoenix, AZ. She volunteered for many years as a radio reader for disabled people. She taught for twenty-four years at Arizona State University. She founded the poetry groups Poetry Exchange and COW: Community of Writers. Stryker has been published in numerous journals and her chapbook Starcrossed was published in 2018. She is currently working on a collection.

IF ONLY ORCAS ATE SEAWEED

by Linda Stryker

The orca named J35, or Tahlequah, carrying her dead calf on the seventh day. Credit: Ken Balcomb/Center for Whale Research via The New York Times: “The Orca, Her Dead Calf and Us” by Susan Carey, August 4, 2018.

Our babies are dying, she said
without words. Look!

as she held up her newborn
and newly dead on her nose.

Days go by, and she still
clings to the tiny she-orca.

Do something! she says
without words. Look!

Our clan will die of hunger,
where are the salmon we

feed on? grandmother
orca says without words.

Our babies die of hunger,
as do we. You, humans,

can solve this. You must,
she says without words.

Her loud voice carries over
the waves and into hearts

who want her to live, but
who know she cannot.

Linda Stryker writes from Phoenix, Arizona, and is a volunteer radio reader for Sun Sounds. Her chapbook Starcrossed was recently published by dancing girl press. Her creative writing has been published in Highlights for Children, New Millennium Writings, Ekphrastic Review, Third Wednesday, and Chiron Review, among several other venues.

LONDON FLASH

by Linda Stryker

Image source: Belfast Telegraph

I forfeit my untroubled life
flashed in Parliament’s windows
he yells in a rose-red voice
when noise is the only turn
hang my body on the news

who-the-devil on the bridge
vile car shoots forward
runs down the oblivious
revs onward to double the dead
screams of agony and loss

a flashed knife toward an innocent
a yell      get the crazed runner
stopped sound of many breaths
a chaotic quiet in the aftermath
tourists on their pleasant strolls


Linda Stryker writes from Phoenix, Arizona, and is a volunteer radio reader and musician. Her work has been published in Highlights for Children, Ekphrastic, Chiron Review, and New Millennium Writings, among several others. Terrorists, like a pack of hungry coyotes, tear at the flanks of of civilization.