PINK

by Sandra Anfang

I didn’t think they’d do it

I thought it was a bluff.

 

Fifty years of progress

and the promise of more 

wrung like rags and tossed away.

 

Metal hanger signs dot the crowd. 

Bitter copper paints my tongue.

 

Red tears defile our cheeks

divide us into stars and stripes.

Iodine and salt set the stain

 

as the monthly blood of women 

swirls in pinwheel patterns

 

down the snowy drains

of smug old men who mock

our mock democracy.

 

Is that Sisyphus ahead

pushing his bloody burden up the hill

of fat white lies? Senators puff stogies

 

turn on their heels to leer as the

pageant of female flesh flows by

 

shouting, pumping fists and rage

marching in our pink pussy hats.

 

I can see from their lewd smiles

that this is entertainment of the

you look pretty when you’re angry kind.

 

It’s time to take a knee, sisters, every time

that cursed pledge is mouthed.

 

With liberty and justice for all we stand

united, ready to lift each other up.

We are at your cervix, America.

Author’s Note: My small town held a rally and march on Saturday that attracted hundreds of protestors, including many men and children. I'm holding the big sign in the photo by Beth Schlanker in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, with my ninety-year-old friend.

 

Sandra Anfang is a California poet, teacher, and artist. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including Rattle, The New Verse News, The MacGuffin, and Spillway. Her poetry collections include Looking Glass Heart (Finishing Line Press, 2016), Road Worrier (Finishing Line Press, 2018), and Xylem Highway (Main Street Rag, 2019). Kelsay Books will publish her chapbook Finishing School in early 2023. She’s been nominated for a Best Short Fictions award, Best of the Net, and a Pushcart Prize. Anfang is founder and host of the monthly series, Rivertown Poets (established 2013), and a poetry teacher in the schools.

WHAT MOTHERS KNOW ABOUT WAR

a pantoum by Sandra Anfang

"I’ve never liked my daughter’s stroller. I put it on the baby registry without trying it in person and when it arrived the dimensions felt wrong. The button that was supposed to facilitate one-handed folding did not facilitate one-handed folding. But over the weekend I saw a photograph of this stroller—the same style and color—sitting on the platform of a Polish train station, and this was the thing that finally obliterated what was left of my journalistic steel and made me sob about Ukraine. More than a million Ukrainian refugees have now poured into neighboring Poland, most of them women and children. When Polish mothers learned of this, it seems, they went to the railway stations and border crossings where the refugees were arriving, and they began dropping off baby strollers. A photojournalist [Francesco Malavolta/AP] covering the conflict snapped a picture of seven empty ones waiting at the Przemysl Glowny station [at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland]." —Monica Hesse, The Washington Post, March 9, 2022

I never liked my daughter’s stroller

I bought it unseen from an online store

when the box arrived I opened it and cried   

somehow the dimensions felt all wrong 

 

I bought it unseen from an online store

gave it to the family across the square

somehow the dimensions felt all wrong

today I found it—same model, same make

 

I gave it to the family across the square

I felt ungrateful for I had so much

today I found it—same model, same make 

abandoned with others at the Medyka station

 

I felt ungrateful for I had so much

the sight of it triggered deep despair

abandoned with others at the Medyka station

waiting for refugees’ lives to begin 

 

the sight of it triggered deep despair

as we welcome the mothers—one million and more

waiting for their lives to begin again

storming the border, babes at their breasts

 

As we welcome the mothers—one million and more

who pour into Poland on tides of tears

storming the border, babes at their breasts

all that they own strapped like mail to their chests

 

They pour into Poland on tides of tears

packed strollers await them, fit for a prince

infants strapped like mail to their chests

piled blankets and diapers to warm their new lives

 

Packed strollers await them, fit for a prince

refugees flow in wearing thin cloth coats

piled blankets and diapers to warm their new lives

symbiotic survival—mothers’ hard truth of war

 

Refugees flow in wearing thin cloth coats

after heat was shut off, the water lines cut

symbiotic survival—mothers’ hard truth of war

starved by the greed of the Russian state

 

after heat was shut off, the water lines cut

women were forced to flee and to hide

starved by the greed of the Russian state

victims of men’s urges, tossed like ashes

 

women were forced to flee and to hide

and after their flight, raped and tossed again

victims of men’s urges, tossed like ashes

their bodies are beachheads where battles are won

 

after their flight, raped and tossed again

their bodies as shelter, as instruments of war

their bodies are beachheads where battles are won

the things we don’t mention that all mothers know

 

their bodies as shelter, as instruments of war

I never liked my daughter’s stroller

the things we don’t mention that all mothers know

when the box arrived, I opened it and cried

 

Sandra Anfang is a much-published poet, poetry teacher, and visual artist who lives in Northern California. She's been hosting a monthly poetry series since 2013. She walks and writes daily to process her overconsumption of news stories. Her grandparents hailed from Minsk and Budapest, and she feels a deep connection to Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

GIRLS SAY YES

Poem for Veterans Day

by Sandra Anfang

Pictured L to R: Joan Baez, Pauline Baez Marden, Mimi Farina in this 1968 poster, from a Jim Marshall photograph, promoting draft resistance during the Vietnam War. Source: National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

to boys who say no.

The words ring hollow

in my ears like a looped refrain

from a scratched LP

a not-so-distant memory.

 

Aligned with the movement

I nodded and signed on. I never

gave my body—much less

heart—to a man in uniform, unless he worked

in the service of people, animals, or trees.

 

But what about the other war

the one that ogled us

from leering unshaved faces

from portraits on greenbacks

from slave ships and pedophile priests?

 

Blissfully unaware of the battle

that raged behind clenched teeth

we sailed along, soothed by the

waters of our beliefs, decades

before our lips would shape the words me too.

Sandra Anfang is the author of three poetry collections and her work has been published in numerous journals. She's also a visual artist, editor, poetry teacher in the schools, and host of a long-running poetry series. She lives in Northern California, where she looks for good trouble every day.

HOPE

by Sandra Anfang

“Hope and Justice” by David Garibaldi

is not the thing with feathers bickering at the feeder

bullying the finches into flight

 

nor the Hallmark card, faded from decades of cliché

shoved in the back of the dollar store rack

 

Hope is not the white dove flying from the open hymnal

like a pop-up book, nor the blond god on 

 

nana’s closet door smiling from his ruby throne.

It’s not the inscription on the hand-drawn

 

sign buried in roses at the site of the latest

black man’s murder by the men in blue

 

nor the Christian Covid patient emoting from

his ICU bed, hoarding oxygen and prayers

 

while millions of deniers chorus no,

we won’t go to vaccine clinics.

 

Hope is not the promised land behind

a child’s eyes when she mouths on bended knee

 

bless mommy and daddy and

all the creatures in the sea.

 

Is hope the force that pulls us from our beds

when the world seems to have given up?

 

Is it the hands that brew the coffee, steep the tea

debate existence with our feline friends

 

hands that kindle the ritual of another day

as if our time were endless here.

 

Sandra Anfang is a poet, editor, poetry teacher, and visual artist. She’s the author of Looking Glass Heart and Road Worrier (Finishing Line Press, 2016 and 2018) and Xylem Highway (Main Street Rag, 2019) and the founder of Rivertown Poets in Petaluma, CA. Since Covid overtook our lives, she alternates between binging on statistics and walking and writing to allay her fears.

MISS CISSY TEACHES A MATH LESSON

by Sandra Anfang

George Floyd as a boy with his mother Larcenia, known as Miss Cissy, who died on May 30, 2018

.

My son George is dead. We lie 

under the earth in a quiet Houston

cemetery where we grieve together. 

All of Minneapolis is grieving.

Twenty-seven months from now

we will still be grieving.

I heard him call out for me

as he struggled for eight minutes

under the knee of the white cop

My name is tattooed on his belly.

We are connected at the core.

In twenty-seven years we will still be grieving.

I used to love the number twenty-seven:

three times three times three.

The number of black men police kill

each year has not changed since I died.

Twelve hundred sixty-five of my babies have

been felled, and they are all my babies.

Here they said. Take this money in exchange

for George’s life, but that won’t bring him back.

I cannot balance this equation. 

Three point three: the number

of millions our family was paid

for every minute that white cop 

pressed his hate into George’s neck.

Just forty-six, he was a dad and grandad.

The city has wiped the crime scene clean

but our pain is an indelible stain.

Money is a powerful mop. We will use it

to help the cause of black folks everywhere.

That white cop must be locked away

if that’s what it takes to end 

this circle of slaughter.

Sandra Anfang is an award-winning poet, poetry teacher, and editor. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including San Francisco Peace and Hope, Spillway, The New Verse News, and Rattle. Her two chapbooks Looking Glass Heart and Road Worrier were published by Finishing Line Press in 2016 and 2018, respectively. Xylem Highway, a full-length collection, was published by Main Street Rag in 2019. Sandra teaches with California Poets in the Schools and hosts Rivertown Poets, a monthly reading series, in Petaluma, California. This poem was born of the twenty-seven-million-dollar settlement for George’s life by the city of Minneapolis this week.

THEY PROPPED THE DEAD MAN UP: AN ALLEGORY

by Sandra Anfang

We were waist deep in the big muddy

and the big fool said to push on. 

—Pete Seeger, “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”

A man I used to know

who knew a man I used to know

told me a story about

the old man’s funeral.

How they propped him up

in his single bed like a child’s

dressed him in his favorite

cowboy shirt, hat, & boots.

How their feet carved circles

in the small front room

of his cabin, how they passed 

around the punch, dished up

the casseroles, poured the wine.

All the while, he lay in his bed

in the corner, where it had been wheeled

watching them enjoy the feast.

He didn’t miss a beat.

He looked great—alive as you or me

said the man I used to know.

Maybe a little ashen.

“They propped the dead man up”

cycles through my brain

like a country refrain.

If they hadn’t heard the story

of how his Kawasaki overshot

the freeway bridge, a suspected 

heart attack the cause

you might have thought he was

enjoying an afternoon nap.

This scenario would not

be hard to replicate:

(an old man waving from

the window of an SUV; 

the steel-spiked wall of his dissembling).

During the parsing of the meatloaf

the news, the deviled eggs

they propped the dead man up 

and life continued

more or less

as it had before.

Sandra Anfang is an award-winning poet, poetry teacher, and editor. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including San Francisco Peace and Hope, West Trestle Review, Spillway, and Rattle. Her two chapbooks, Looking Glass Heart and Road Worrier, were published by Finishing Line Press in 2016 and 2018, respectively. Xylem Highway, a full-length collection, was published by Main Street Rag in 2019. Sandra teaches with California Poets in the Schools and hosts Rivertown Poets, a monthly reading series, in Petaluma, California. She is spending her sheltering-in-place days writing poetry and haiku, taking long walks, and texting for MoveOn.org to defeat t***p.