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. 

THE CONDITIONAL CASE FOR CONVICTION

by Diana Cole

A patron of a laundromat near Cup Foods watching the Derek Chauvin trial on Monday. Credit: Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times, April 6, 2021

for George Floyd

 

 

Nothing can be true, so the dog barks all night

          missing the man who feeds him.

 

Into the fire go the stars. If the garbage is collected

          in the morning, the moon will go too.

 

Without evidence of insects, birds have nothing to eat.

          He’s talking so he’s fine.

 

Nothing but a man, a sizable guy who loves his Mama, 

          who lost his Mama.  

                                    

I kneel in case the sun will intervene in time.

          Inside the car, the back seat is a thick darkness. 

 

A black man could get lost if the air is handcuffed.

          Even if he pleads 20 times, he is under the influence,

 

under suspicion, under the knee, undertaken.

          All for 20 dollars, supposing that, even if, as long as… 

Diana Cole, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has had poems published in numerous journals including Poetry East, Spillway, the Tar River Review, the Cider Press Review, GBH Public Radio, Friends Journal, Verse Daily, and the Main Street Rag, and upcoming in Crab Creek Review. Her chapbook Songs By Heart was published in 2018 by Iris Press. She is an editor for The Crosswinds Poetry Journal and a member of Ocean State Poets whose mission is to encourage the reading, writing and sharing of poetry. 

TARGET

by Joe Amaral

Is it a person?
Oh no, did it get burned?
Looted? Robbed? Murdered?
Is it okay?

That’s a big box store.
Thick-necked. Hard to press.
Sells hoodies and jeans.
Dresses provocatively.
Damaging.
So empty inside now.
Gutted.

Seriously though, can it breathe?
Does it need water? Mama?
Call the police knee. Did it die?

Poor store, almost like a person.
Hard to fit in a bodybag.
There is video evidence.
Linoleum riot for inanimate rights!

Did it have a family? Friends?
Coworkers? A soul?
Will people miss it forever?
What is its past history?
Arrest record?
Stock market trend?

Ahem.      For profit.
Portfolio is looking up.
Tax sheltered. Bailout ready.
Owner made millions.
In a hazardous pandemic.
Workers get paid shit.
Unprotected. Wage theft.

Why are we only mourning
the humanity of lost property?
Joe Amaral,
Injustice reaction:
“Cleanup on Aisle 7”

Insurance will cover.
Nice being able to live again.
Exist. Mend.

Corporate thug.
Got what it deserved.

Joe Amaral’s first poetry collection The Street Medic won the 2018 Palooka Press Chapbook  Contest.

FLEEING MOSUL

by Seree Zohar

Between 700 and 1,000 people arrive daily from the embattled city of Mosul to the stretch of UN-run refugee camps just 20 kilometers east of the city's outskirts. —CNN, December 18, 2016. Photo: Iraqi IDPs (internally displaced people ) from fighting in the village of Shora, south of Mosul, reach an Iraqi army checkpoint on the northern outskirts of Qayyarah, which was liberated from ISIS but is still engulfed in thick black smoke from oil wells set ablaze by the retreating militants. IDP’s who reach Qayyarah are then taken to the Ja’dah IDP camp, October 2016. Ivor Prickett—UNHCR via Time.

Homing pigeon launched through dawn, your rhythm alights on me,
fingers, gloats, dehisces: prayer, your cadence chooses me.

White flag?  We hadn't time to buy one.  And nothing here stays white.
Brethren!  We are light!  Scourges thunder news to me.

Amorphous tented Mama,  my weary footsteps echo yours.
Did I once beg for makeup?  To age so young no more amuses me.

On red-moist stone the thrashing dove’s heart seeks its startled head
as the moon shatters her mirror.  A hone-edged screeching nooses me.

In gasps accursed by memory, sounds palpitate, untongued.
Sheared of speech, my youngster throat: its grunted coo accuses me.

They thrill to this: to snatch and strip, recast their prophet’s land
where, slim as a rising blade, a martyr grooms, then bruises, me.

Mama, snatch up your hem and run, for torpor now diffuses me.
My spilling psyche frays.  My throwaway martyr loses me.


Seree Zohar has work published or forthcoming in various print and online venues.