NEW YORK CITY, 7 AM, SUNDAY, 2026

by Naomi Pliskow

Fat pigeons peck hopefully

at Saturday night’s scat–

tickets, receipts, ketchup-stained napkins–

dotting grey cement as though they were 

the leaves of autumn.

 

The Saturday night squawks and judders, 

the clangs and gulps and sighs,

are replaced by an echoing quiet,

as though covered by a layer of soft cotton

intruded on only by pigeon murmurs and 

the petulant honk 

of a single metal beast on rubber legs

piloted by some human who didn’t   

make it home last night.

 

The smell of sweat and alcohol

from a hooded passerby  

interrupts the aroma   

of bread baked at four this morning

when the baker’s dark hands grasped soft white dough 

trying to hold on to these islands 

for just a little while longer

before being forced to return  

to his ravaged own,

where people peck for leavings

like hopeful morning pigeons

and bake bitterness into 

every scarce loaf.

Naomi Pliskow published her first poetry collection in a three-ring binder at age eight. She recently returned to writing poetry after a long hiatus. Her poems have been published in One Art, Adanna, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Canary, and several anthologies. Her satirical song lyrics were published in The New York Times in 2024. Her chapbook Entering the Water will be released in September of 2026. She is editor of the Philadelphia Mad Poets Society newsletter.

T.P.S, T.P.S, T.P.S.

by Indran Amirthanayagam

No more mother of exiles.

No more hands outstretched

to the tired and poor, 

the huddled masses. 

No more strolling 

on the boardwalk

at Coney Island 

or by the Golden Gate

or on the cobblestoned

streets of the French Quarter,

where Americans gather.

No more Haitians 

fleeing gangs, rapists

and house burners.

No more Syrians

escape artists

from Assad father

and Assad son.

No more 

Allen Ginsberg

denouncing 

the damnations

of Moloch.  

But listen.

We accept mortality, 

that we are on earth 

a little space. But we 

are here now, 

and deportation orders,

we will challenge 

each one. Organize, 

Strategize. 

Hide our brothers 

and sisters. 

To the churches!

To the sanctuary cities! 

Distract and resist ICE.

Do not accept 

any supremacy

in the decision 

to deny Temporary 

Protected Status 

to Haitians 

and Syrians.

Indran Amirthanayagam writes a Substack. He has just published Isla itinerante ( Editorial Apogeo, Peru, 2025) and White Space Sonnets ( Sarasavi publishers, Sri Lanka, 2025). His other publications include El bosque de deleites fratricidas ( RIL Editores), Seer (Hanging Loose Press),The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil), Powèt Nan Pò A: Poet of the Port (Mad Hat), and Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (Broadstone Books). He is the translator of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books) and Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube, and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.