FOR YOU, MALALA

by Kit Zak

For You, Malala
          fighting for the right of girls to read
          defying threats of death     and death itself
          your body warring against assassins’ bullets
                    I inhale the breath of your purity, dream your blood-red dreams
For you, Malala
          I pray to see my veiled misdeed
          I will fast for tolerance in my life
          and call out the cancers of hungry prejudice
          blinding young and old
For you, Malala
          oak-brave and oak strong
          I will embrace the firmness of trees
          their rootedness in earth
          stretching arms into the heavens
For you, Malala
         I will shed skins of selfishness
         roll up my sleeves for the unfinished work
         join battles for the rights of every human
For you, Malala, have restored our hope


Kit Zak is an environmentalist in Lewes, DE. She has published poems in The New Verse News, California Quarterly, The Broadkill Review, Jellyfish Whispers, The Blue Collar Review, and
several anthologies.

JANUARY POEM

by Patricia Davis

When fascism comes
it will come with two

children, a dog,
tell warm, personal stories,
call us Ladies and

Gentlemen, have a
catch in its throat.

When fascism comes
it will raid
the houses of sleeping

children, use stun
grenades, tasers.

When fascism comes
it will seize filmmakers’
work at the border.

When fascism comes
it will study our e-mails.

When fascism comes
the potential hostile
intent of a child

will be reason to call in
a drone strike.

When fascism comes
there will be no lawyer,
no sentence, only

the bars, the dark.
When fascism comes

it will jail exclusively
those who have
spoken the truth.

When fascism comes
it will rise from the ash

of oppression.  On the wall
will hang the Nobel
Peace Prize.


Patricia Davis’ poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Salt Hill, Spoon River Poetry Review, Potomac Review, Quiddity, Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology, Tar River Poetry, and Smartish Pace, which named her a finalist for the Beullah Rose Poetry Prize.   Her translations of Cuban poetry have been published or are forthcoming in Spoon River Poetry Review, Puerto del Sol and the New Laurel Review.