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.

ROMAN NUMERAL C

by J. D. Mackenzie





Novices learn in wax and clay
Freemen with mallets use stone

When the numbers grew so large
That the Emperor declared victory
Senators looked the other way

Mounds of bodies
Too many to count—
One hundred thousand?
How could this be?

Let the record show a single letter
At least for now, at this moment
Let the victors tell their story
Until we stop this madness
Someday

J. D. Mackenzie is holding up well, if by holding up well you mean writing poems every day and desperately trying to convert classes from traditional to online for an American community college in western Oregon. He and his family live in the foothills of the Coastal Range and are quickly relearning the art of growing their own arugula. 

A NOTE TO MS. WARREN, MS. HARRIS, AND MS. KLOBUCHAR

by Gil Hoy




When you see
a little girl

Particularly if she
does not smile
very much,

Or has a tiny tear
on her tender cheek,

You be sure
to tell her—

Please be sure
to tell—

Drawing deep from
within your own pain

That you, too,
can be a Senator,

Or perhaps
even President.


Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and semi-retired trial lawyer who studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry has appeared most recently in Chiron Review, TheNewVerse.News, Ariel Chart, Social Justice Poetry, Poetry24, Right Hand Pointing/One Sentence Poems, I am not a silent poet, The Potomac, Clark Street Review, the penmen review, and elsewhere

THE POPE IS LIKE A REPUBLICAN SENATOR

by James M. Croteau

Apologies are like prayers
without action. Catholic claims
of intrinsically disordered and
contrary to natural law are like
allowing Sig Sauer MCXs and
AR-15s to be purchased with
no restrictions. Sorry's not enough.

James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 31 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the U.S. south in the 60’s and 70’s and his writing often reflects that experience. His poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Right Hand Pointing, Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South and Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry among others. His first chapbook will be published by Redbird Chapbooks in 2016. He occasionally blogs about writing at talkingdogsholymen.blogspot.com.