FRENCH MEAT PIE

by Michelle Valois

 

 

French meat pie is a greasy wonder of pork, beef, and onion, filling a pie crust that is flaky and buttery. Some parts of French Canada add potatoes, some breadcrumbs. Either way, the additions were intended to stretch the meat, which you had to do if you were poor. My family used breadcrumbs.
 
My Mai Mai taught my mother and she taught me. These days, though, with one of my children vegan, I make a meatless meat pie, using mushrooms and lentils as a substitute for the meat. My relatives and other purists are appalled, but it’s actually not bad.

This vegan daughter of mine is also queer, and all three of my children are Jewish, as is my partner. I just found out that if you can prove that a grandparent was born in Canada you can apply for Canadian citizenship. If what is happening in Minnesota becomes the norm, we may just have to return to the motherland of meat pies, maple syrup, and ice hockey. I hope they won’t mind how I have tinkered with one of their national dishes in the three generations that my family has thrived in this so-called land of the free, but it appears that it is no longer free, which it never really was for people of color; now, though, it’s only free if you are white and MAGA.

My grandparents left their farms in Canada for a better life in the factories of New England. They could never have dreamed that their granddaughter would become a college professor, marry a woman, and be able to afford all the pork and beef she wants (but chooses mushrooms and lentils), the American dream come true.

My father fought fascists in Germany. He could never have dreamed that his children and grandchildren would have to fight them here on American soil, the American dream turned nightmare.

Meatless meat pie? You can make anything, really, without meat, but you can’t make a life without freedom.

Michelle Valois' work has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Florida Review, TriQuarterly, Pank, Brevity, and others. A chapbook My Found Vocabulary was published in 2017 (Aldrich). She lives in Massachusetts and teach at a community college.

BEATING UP THE POOR

by Dale Jacobson

Trump’s thugs come wearing masks 
like the KKK would hide their faces 
to not be known by the honest light of day.

To be surprised by American fascism 
is to forget to ask what the country has been 
for the poorest of the poor from the beginning, 
or how the worst of the worst made their law 
bright with fire, whips and murder.

You think reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in school 
ever meant justice for all? Or for the poor 
a just country ever existed? And the hatred 
and terror Trump now brings to the cities 
is a new law of a land that once was free?

Yes, they are paid to break families apart, 
they are colder than the deepest cold of 

Minnesota winter. The past also has its allegiances, 

cold-blooded and brutal.

And what do these thugs get from the mayhem 
they generously offer as their vision of America?  
What do they take home for their supper of dreams? 
Their bribe is what they take.  
What is the moldy crust they want the nation to eat? 
They don’t care. They never did.

Dale Jacobson is a poet from Minnesota. He has published ten books of poetry and appeared in a number of journals, including APR, Great River Review, and Another Chicago Magazine.

MINNESOTA BRIEF: THINK OF THE CHILDREN

by Bree Donovan

A safeguard document is helping parents prepare in case of ICE arrest and family separation. —CBS News, January 16, 2026.  Click for a video explaining DOPA.

If you cannot see this as an occupation,
but you do wince about the children
(because after all, at heart, you’re kind), please know:
hundreds of adults in Minnesota are training
as DOPAs—meaning “Delegation of Parental
Authority” designees—so in the event children’s parents
are kidnapped and detained who knows where or
deported who knows where, and their children
no longer have mami, hooyo, pa, they do have,
some have, a DOPA. A someone, DOPA, if not papi.
 
If children are your occasional concern, because of course
the children of the hunted could be innocent until proven
guilty, please know: the ones in children’s hospice
(in case you’ve thought of them, yes there are
hospices just for children), each have a nurse,
so far not deported, enfermera, kalkaalisada,
and a DOPA on file in case they die
without their waalidka, their Pa-Moe holding their hand.
 
If children are a now and then concern, pro tip:
a DOPA can be an aunt, npawg, grandfather,
pu, neighbor, pii chai, or attorney. As long
as DOPA papers are signed, the npawg,
neighbor, auntie has the legal right (temporarily
but who actually knows) to decide about schools,
medical care, care in general (will they know
of allergies, asthma, bedwetting, things only parents
know?). Pii chai become waalidka, attorneys-in-fact.
 
If children cross your mind—if—carry on:
parents of disabled children, of children still at home
ages 3 days to 17 years, parents who must keep
working and worry some night as they walk
to their car out the service door they will be taken,
dread this vividly, continuously, while feeding, holding,
tucking in their children, their deepest concern, seeing 
their own abductions play out behind their children’s stories
of dinosaurs and flying tigers and apps and places
where it’s always warm and ice cream is free on trees,
these parents have pre-erased themselves with DOPAs.
DOPAs mean their children, their abiding broken-hearted 
concern, might continue to be cared for somehow for some time.

DOPAs are these parents's last best loving acts. 

So go on, monsters. The children are covered. 

Author's note: The languages here are Spanish, Somali, Karen, Hmong—just some of the languages spoken by kidnapped parents of children in Minnesota.

Bree Donovan is the pseudonym of a St. Paul, Minnesota writer who is active on Signal. A childless adult adoptee, Bree thinks often of the children.

FOR MINNEAPOLIS

by Ruth Lehrer

They don’t tell you in the morning
you will die by noon 
driving in your car
walking on the street 
 
after you are gone
you see a picture of the gun
flesh as good as ashes
blood as good as painted pain 
 
But in that morning you just know
yesterday your neighbor was brave
so today you must be too
The boundary between trust and fear
torn open
 
We are all ash
We are all brave. 

Ruth Lehrer is a sign language interpreter and Pushcart-nominated poet living in western Massachusetts. She is the author of the young adult novel Being Fishkill. 

THE HANDOVER

by Lonnie Buerge

After a Border Patrol agent killed Alex Pretti, Attorney General Pam Bondi tells Minnesota to hand over its voter roll to “bring an end to the chaos.” —Mother Jones, January 27, 2026

Hand over the lists

they say.

Hand over the lists

of the people 

who vote.

Hand them over.

We just want to help.

We just want to be of service

to democracy.

Hand over the lists

and we will leave you alone,

get off your necks,

quit murdering your people,

you can stay safe.

Just hand over the lists.

Just hand them over.

Give them up.

Give them.

Give.

Give them to us.

Keep yourself safe,

Hand them over.

The trains are waiting.

Lonnie Buerge is old in chronology but young in poetry. He has spent the bulk of his career and accounting in the petroleum industry but has enjoyed reading and writing poetry intensely for the past 14 years. He is involved in coordinating the Ginny Soldner Poetry Collaborative in Aspen, CO. He is, unfortunately, not much published.

EVERY LITTLE BIT: A HAIBUN

by Miriam Weinstein

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

My assignment—oranges and limes—As much or as little as you’re able to bring—the emailed instructions specified. Food and supplies collected for people afraid to leave their homes during the ICE invasion of Minnesota. Operation Metro Surge. Thousands of uniformed, masked agents carrying weapons—now a common sight on the streets of my city. Agents of fear acting erratically. Lying in face of facts. Spreading terror and chaos across my State—land of ten thousand lakes, surging rivers, roaring waterfalls. In the church parking lot, volunteers load carts—boxes of diapers, canned goods, packaged products and produce. A middle-aged man wheels a cart to the side of my car. I pull out two large reusable bags, empty contents. Five, six pound bags of oranges, five, three pound bags of limes. Small offering considering—68, 400 people, rounded and roughed up, interrogated, arrested. In the name of searching for illegal, criminal aliens, citizens and legal residents—seized—two Americans murdered by ICE agents. Their real agenda—to breed uncertainly, fear, and chaos. Every little bit counts my friend tells me. I’m desperate today to believe in something. Has the produce I dropped off  reached its destinations? During this unfathomable crisis, is someone, somewhere being nourished?

Dusk display—turkey vulture 

soars, swoops down. Curved beak 

grasps carcass, carries rat skyward.

Miriam Weinstein completed a two year apprenticeship program at the Loft Literary Center in 2013. She has two chapbooks published by Finishing Line Press: Twenty Ways of Looking and How to Thread a Needle. Her poems are in several anthologies and journals including A 21st Century Plague, Rocked by the Waters, Poems of Hope and Reassurance, The Heart of All That Is, Survivor Lit, The New Verse News, Plum Tree Tavern, Vita Brevis Press, St. Paul Almanac, and American Jewish World. Her manuscript Here. Between. Beyond. was a finalist for the Concrete Wolf Press Louis Award. Miriam Weinstein is an avid birdwatcher and environmentalist. She lives in Minneapolis, MN.

FOR LIAM CONEJO ROJAS, 5 YEARS OLD, SEIZED BY ICE

by Pepper Trail

Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, is seen being detained in a photo released by Columbia Heights Public Schools officials that has prompted anger in the Twin Cities. Credit.: Columbia Heights Public Schools via The New York Times, January 22, 2026

This is what I would say, would try to say.

 

Liam, are you okay?  

No, I didn’t think so.

Come sit by me.

Yes, I’m crying, I’m crying a little, sorry.

 

Can I hold your hand?   We can just sit quietly.

You are safe here.

If only that was true.

 

……..

 

A little better now?  

I’m so sorry what happened to you.

It was very bad.

Those were very bad people, and it was scary.

 

But you’re safe now.

If only that was true.

Your father and mother love you.  

So many people love you.

I’m sorry about the bad people, but there are good people too.

We will make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

Not to you, or to any other kid.

We must make that true.
 

You are very brave. Thank you for being so brave.

Thank you for sitting with me.

 

I love you, Liam.

Are you ready to play?   

Great, your mother is right here, and your friends.

Go play.

I’ll be going now. There are a lot of things I have to do.

 

Good people, there is so much we have to do.

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

SCULPTURE

by Jan Chronister

In Duluth, Minnesota

a well-known snow sculptor

crafts a car on his front lawn—

Honda Pilot with smiling driver,

arm hanging out. 

He adds a sign that says,

“I’m not mad at you.”

Someone places flowers

on the white canvas.

A photo of the sculpture on Facebook

draws close to one hundred hateful comments,

some even rejoicing at her death.

It’s going to be cold in Minnesota—

wind chills as low as -60.

The snow car and driver

will be around a long time.

Perhaps long enough

for the haters to find 

their humanity.

Jan Chronister is a retired educator who splits her year between the extremes of northern Wisconsin (by Lake Superior) and southern Georgia. She has authored three full-length poetry collections and twelve chapbooks. Jan edits and publishes the work of fellow poets under the imprint of Poetry Harbor.

AUBADES FOR WOMEN LOST

by Andrena Zawinski

“Aubade,” 1942 by Pablo Picasso

So—

(An Aubade for a Woman Lost

So he gave her a pearl handled gun,

its skull and crossbones in a red red rose.

So she packed it moonlighting 

driving nights for a ride share.

So she never used it.

So it was used on her.

So he shoved it sideways inside her

mouth smeared bloody with lipstick.

So her temple bore a jewel of a bullet bloom.

So her dark eyes rolled backwards ghastly white.

So she kept on talking: no, oh no, oh no.

So he was a person of interest let go.

So they strung a cardboard toe tag

where she had worn his gold band.

So they put her in the cold bed 

silenced in a morgue drawer.

So at daybreak on her birthday, he ate 

that same gun, metallic on the tongue, 

crying out: no, oh no, oh no.

So it never even made the evening news.

—for Georgeann Eskievich Rettberg 

    (1952-2003)

She—

(Another Aubade for a Woman Lost)

She, mother of three

in the routine of another day,

shot down driving away 

in the Minnesota snow 

from ICE officers

mixed and missed dictates.

She, another woman lost, 

her wife and observers

in a chorus of fear

calling out

oh no, oh no, oh no.

She, a poet who wrote

of solipsist sunsets,

tercets from cicadas,

that the bible and qur’an 

and bhagavad gita…

make room for wonder.

She, now a metaphor

of lilies and lavender,

votives and tea lights

peace signs and queer flags

for what could have been,

what could be for any of us.

She, in a murderous

last rite anointed as fucking bitch

silenced by three bullets,

face awash in blood.

She, reduced

to an endless loop 

of twisted narratives

on the news circuits

while women cry out

again and again an endless

oh no, oh no, oh no.

—for Renee Nicole Good 

    (1989-2026)

Andrena Zawinski is the author of four full-length collections of poetry, most recently Born Under the Influence. Her work has been lauded for its appreciation of nature, spirituality, social concern, and craft. Her writing appears widely online and in print, including at Verse Daily. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, she has made her home on Alameda Island in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

SCALES OF JUSTICE IN THE COURT OF LAST RESORT

by Rick Pongratz

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

Let’s say there’s no judge,
it's just us, you and me,
and all of our peers, 
deliberating, pontificating, confabulating. 

Awaiting our verdict,
segregated in the balcony, sit
two made motherless in Minnesota 
next to two made fatherless in Utah,
and our children, with all of their peers.

Opposing solicitors dance before us, 
profiteers play up our fears, 
until we are hung—and together, 
pile more dead upon the plates,
to lie with all of our peers.

The left and right arms of our scales
tilt and totter with each fresh body,
the chains grown too taut, 
not made for the weight of revenge.

Rick Pongratz is an emerging poet. His poetry has appeared in Rattle and is forthcoming in Frogpond. Rick works as a mental health clinician and currently studies creative writing at Idaho State University.