LAST WORDS

by Joan Mazza

Without TV, I turn to the Internet to see
videos of crowds rushed by the police
with shields and full riot gear as they push
back protestors. Tear gas and smoke,
shouting, chanting one man’s name,
his last words an echo of another’s—

I can’t breathe.

So many people pushed together, crowds
breathing each other’s breaths, droplets
of anger and outrage pooling to form
a stream, a river, an ocean of grief,
hundreds of years of slave masters
and tyrants, bullies and dictators.

I can’t breathe.

Gowned and masked, medical workers
adjust tubing and drips, hear last gasps
of the those dying alone. No visitors
allowed. We’re socially distant, isolated,
afraid of friends and family who have
marched to say no to brutality.

I can’t breathe.

George Floyd, your name enters
the litany with Philando Castile, Sandra
Bland, Michael Brown, Eric Garner.
White, armed protestors who threaten
the Wisconsin governor’s life are met
with hard stares, not tear gas.

I can’t breathe.

I’m coughing. My throat is sore. My eyes
hurt, joints ache. Ticks and pollen
are thick this year. The news is muddy.
Our president is no leader, no comfort.
He threatens more beatings, promises
shooting will reign supreme.

I can’t breathe.


Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her work has appeared in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, The MacGuffin, Prairie Schooner, and The Nation.

AGAIN, A GUN

by Akua Lezli Hope

As Stephon Clark’s death shows, we live in a time when the term “unarmed” is becoming inconsequential—and, for a black man in certain settings, meaningless. —Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker, April 5, 2018. Photograph by Max Whittaker / NYT / Redux via The New Yorker.

Whose cell phone is a gun
Whose frown is a gun
Whose toy is a gun
Whose today is a gun
Whose smile is a gun
Whose tomorrow is a gun
Whose wallet is a gun
Whose loud is a gun
Whose soft is a gun
Whose CDs are a gun
Whose silence is a gun
Whose protest is a gun
Whose stop is a gun
Whose go is a gun
Whose yes is a gun
Whose no is a gun
Whose pipe is a gun
Whose hand is a gun
Whose stand is a gun
Whose advance is a gun
Whose retreat is a gun
Whose plea is a gun
Whose kneel is a gun
Whose showerhead is a gun
Whose question is a gun
Whose answer is a gun
                         is a gun
                         is a gun

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, handmade paper and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, adornments, sculpture and peace whenever possible. A paraplegic, she has founded a nonprofit paratransit firm. Her poetry collection Them Gone will be published by The Word Works Publishing on June 1, 2018.

THIS IS THE DETAIL THAT BREAKS ME

by Melissa Fite Johnson

Colleagues and parents on Thursday remembered Philando Castile as an ambitious man who served as a role model for hundreds of children before he was fatally shot by a police officer during a traffic stop in Minnesota. Photo: Philando Castile (L) is seen with a colleague in this undated J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School yearbook photo. —TIME, July 7, 2016

Philando Castile, cafeteria
supervisor, remembered
which students couldn’t have
milk.  I imagine his kids
lined up under the fluorescent
hum, pushing plastic trays
along the chrome lunch counter.
Yes to mashed potatoes.
No to baked beans.  A little
more corn, please.  Last stop
the quiet act of reaching
down into the chest cooler
to select white, chocolate,
or infinitely less popular juice
for kids Phil might’ve consoled
with a smile or clap on the shoulder.


Melissa Fite Johnson’s first collection, While the Kettle’s On (Little Balkans Press, 2015), won the Nelson Poetry Book Award and is a Kansas Notable Book.  Her poems have appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Rust + Moth, Broadsided Press, velvet-tail, and elsewhere.  Melissa teaches English and lives with her husband in Kansas.