THE HUNGER

by Donna Katzin

Smithfield Foods, a US unit of China’s biggest pork company, has reopened its [Sioux Falls, South Dakota] processing plant after President Donald Trump ordered the US meatpacking industry to stay open despite an earlier coronavirus outbreak in such facilities across America. … Sioux Falls was thrust into the spotlight after becoming the largest coronavirus hotspot in the US, with 761 employees testing positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, according to local newspaper Argus Leader. … Some workers are refusing to return, with union leaders saying new measures put into place by companies, such as temperature checks and face masks, aren’t enough to guarantee individuals’ safety. —South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), May 7, 2020

First they kill the pigs
hanging upside down, squealing,
pleading for their lives.

Owners crave profits,
a president praise, power—
the consumers pork.

The assembly line
opens its maw—people packed    
elbow to elbow.

Workers in the web—                
trapped.  The spider virus spins,
waits for fresh meat.


Donna Katzin is the founding executive director of Shared Interest, a fund that mobilizes the human and financial resources of low-income communities of color in South and Southern Africa. A board member of Community Change in the U.S., and co-coordinator of Tipitapa Partners working in Nicaragua, she has written extensively about South Africa, community development and impact investing. Published in journals and sites including TheNewVerse.News and The Mom Egg, she is the author of With the Hands, a book of poems and photographs about post-apartheid South Africa’s process of giving birth to itself.

BE OUTRAGED

by Joan Mazza

Image source: Mashable

The morning news is meant to wake you up.

Your phone records are being collected
at the government’s request. The deep sea
floor is littered with trash, most of it recyclable.

A man running for lieutenant governor in Virginia
warns that Yoga lures Satan into your life because
you empty yourself during meditation.

In Texas, a man was acquitted of murder after a date
with an escort who refused to have sex with him.
He shot her and took back the 150 dollars he’d paid.

It’s not even six and I haven’t made coffee and gray
wolves are no longer an endangered species. Isn’t it
too early to despair, especially over gray hair?

China, whose milk industry killed and maimed
their own children, now owns Smithfield farms,
largest pork producer to the world.

A pregnant actress tried to frame her estranged
husband for bioterrorism by sending ricin letters
to President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg.

Why worry when there’s so much good news? Cheating
wives are ready to have an affair with me NOW!
Beautiful Russian women want to marry me.

Plenty of Viagra available for the many men
in my life. And yours, too. We can have solar
power installed in our homes at no cost at all.

Several lending companies will deposit 2,500
dollars into my account in the next ninety seconds.
Why would I accept a pittance when I can have

9.2 million? Surprise— I’m next of kin to Roger Morris
who died in a plane crash in 2004! I’ll just tell them
where to deposit the money. No bad news today.


Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, sex therapist, writing coach and seminar leader. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Perigee/Penguin/Putnam), and her work has appeared in Cider Press Review, Rattle, Off the Coast, Kestrel, Permafrost, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Writer’s Digest, Emerge Literary Journal, the minnesota review, Personal Journaling, and Playgirl. She now writes poetry and does fabric and paper art in rural central Virginia. “By reading and writing poetry, I come to terms with my obsessions.”