ALL MY AUNTIES WERE THIRD WORLD WOMEN

by Vinay Krishnan

 

when you fly international, one of the TSA’s 

prohibited travel items is solidarity for the world’s 

oppressed. don’t put solidarity in your luggage. you 

can’t leave with that. you definitely can’t come home with 

that. at customs, we need an itemized list of any 

new truths you have in your bags that we’ve been 

hiding from you here in America. empty your 

pockets and prove to me you’re not carrying a 

trinket that connects you to another man’s struggle. 

take off your shoes and socks and place your 

brown feet on this white floor as a reminder. a 

reminder that every border crossing is a strip 

search and a cudgel, distilling you into something 

that fits more easily into an overhead compartment 

or a cage or a grave.

but today I had to laugh at that. because all my 

aunties were third world women. and now we're 

running it back, old and new blessings. all my 

aunties were third world women. all my aunties 

were third world women.

Vinay Krishnan is a writer and community organizer. His poetry has appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, his fiction has appeared in Barren Magazine, and his non-fiction has appeared in SLAM Magazine.

WHEN OUR SOLES WERE BARED

by Lisa Seidenberg

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

The Transportation Safety Administration will allow passengers at airports across the country to keep their footwear on as they go through security checkpoints, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters Tuesday. —NBC News, July 8, 2025

First, you think of the man 

who may be seated directly in front of you,

most likely in the aisle seat.

He removes his shoes

and detonates a device that

rips a massive cavity in the plane.

A calamity of destruction, if it happens.

Now your eyes focus

on the security line, all of us bobbing

like impatient concert-goers at

the entrance to a stadium.

We all know the drill, observe

the youngsters padding in anklets,

business men in dress socks,

the stylish women with footwear 

printed with tropical fruit

or emojis or happy animals.

And the unfortunate ones who wore

the pair with a hole in the toe.

It brings back the trip with my grandmother

to Bloomies for shoes and her look 

of horror at my sorry worn-out socks.

Laptops and shoes in the conveyer bin,

in our soft feet, we enter the sacred space 

of the screening capsule, humbled and quiescent

as if entering a Japanese shrine.

Once cleared to recover our shoes,

we feel a private relief that we are safer now.

No harm will come from anyone in this line.

We’ve all had our communal foot baring,

our moment of bonding, a quick 

but meaningful intimacy

which we are now informed 

was an unnecessary and pointless action,

after all.

 Lisa Seidenberg is a 2025 Pushcart nominee. She is a writer and filmmaker residing in coastal Connecticut. Her writing is published in Rattle, Atticus Review, The New Verse News, One Art: A Journal of Poetry, Gyroscope Review, Delta Poetry Review, and others. Her documentaries and poetry films screened at Sundance, London, Athens and Berlin International Film Festivals.

FIGHT OR FLIGHT OR BOTH

by Ron Riekki

When we saw the body being dragged down the aisle,
no one was concerned because it was only the fifth body
that day murdered by the flight crew.  The country was over-
booked, just too many people, and so a little genocide never hurt
anyone.  The blood smeared along the floor just meant jobs—
someone has to clean up all the lungs and livers and specks
of the underemployed from the thousand-dollar seat human pipeline
with no food, no movies, nothing but a seat, or part of a seat anyway,
the elbow of the person next to me in my lap, literally, the rest of the person
gone now; I suppose I should discard it, but there’s no garbage cans anymore.
I mean, not even on the ground.  We just litter, everywhere—there is no difference
between a junkyard and a national park.  Who needs difference?  We’re all the same.
We’re all basically from Africa, all of us, especially our President who is making

the American red hat great again.  When I think of our powerful and wise President,
I think of two words: hat & red.  It’s His symbol, our symbol.  Hat red.  The word
makes me feel proud.  I mean words.  Who cares about spelling or grammar anymore?
It’s all about moneymoneymoney.  A corpse these days can fetch you a hundred
           dollars.
To get on the flight, TSA rapes you.  It’s for your own safety.  I know that
when I was raped for my safety, I thanked the man with his perfect English.
He held my penis in his hand and I said thank you for making me not have to worry
about being abused on the flight.  He gave me a little hug, which caught my attention
and told me I had a thirteen-percent chance of living.  He gave me a little tiny package
of pretzels.  It was so small that I needed tweezers.  I just prayed that they didn’t know
I had Middle Eastern on my mother’s side of the family. I mean I prayed
           metaphorically.
I wouldn’t really pray.  I mean not unless I was doing it properly, patriotically, scared.
I mean sacred.  Sacred as hell.


Ron Riekki wrote U.P.: a novel (Sewanee Writers Series and Great Michigan Read nominated) and edited The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works (2014 Michigan Notable Book from the Library of Michigan and finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award/Grand Prize shortlist, Midwest Book Award, Foreword Book of the Year, and Next Generation Indie Book Award), Here: Women Writing on Michigan's Upper Peninsula (2016 IPPY/Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal Great Lakes—Best Regional Fiction and Next Generation Indie Book Award—Short Story finalist), and And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017 (Michigan State University Press, 2017).

ANY ALLIGATOR

by Daniel Bosch

Police managed to whisk a 2-foot-long alligator into a box after a traveler spotted it under an escalator at O’Hare International Airport. -- Chicago Tribune, November 4, 2013 (Image source: Chicago Herpetological Society)

Any Alligator
In a state

Of nature
Will say “Fresh”

When he means
“Future,” will

Favor carrion’s
Flavors, stow

Prey away
In an under-

Water cache,
A murky keep

Where steeps
His three or


Four months’
Hoard of dis-

Gorged flesh.
The sound

Byte for all
He catches is

“See you later.”
He’s no flight

Risk, he’ll fight
And die

Right there for
What’s in store.

But in O’Hare,
Where scale-

Pelted carry-ons
Mock him,

Where deeply
Impressed dead

Kin parade
As O.T.K.

Boots, where
Reptile-backed

Black belts
Train in heavy-

Duty grey
Tupperware,

Some T.S.A.
Agents looking

On, some
Looking in,

In O’Hare,
It’s no wonder

Any Alligator
Fresh out

From under
An up-bound

Escalator
Might confuse

An interrogator
Saying “Terror”

For “Terra” or
“Hate” for “Hide.”


Daniel Bosch is Senior Editor @ www.berfrois.com .