INFLICTION

by Jess Granger





I watch you from a noncommittal screen, you
with your arm outstretched in the gray mud, you
with your gaping maw that fumbles in the fresh

water for air, nerves searing deep beneath your
blood in convulsions of toxicity, raw rabid foam
enveloping your crooked teeth, the restless muscles

dancing like maggots devouring a fresh carcass,
the yellow vomit spilling from my lips as I watch
your children suffer in their colorful pajamas.

I hold my breath feeling the burn in my lungs as the
alveoli strain to breathe for you, eyes that try to
compensate for your fixed pupils and focus on

the heavy bodies on top of you, pressing you down
into a time where you once knew peace. I’m coming
to help you, I hear your call in the ozone that separates

us, separates you from me, the space I need to ready
my weapons, load the PBXN-109 in their casings
and post your pictures on the metal, the infliction

of my might, for I am civilized, will come in flashes
of light to exploit your torn flesh, modify it into
incendiary ash on the sand of Khan Sheikhoun.

Jess Granger is a U.S. Army veteran and an MFA student in the Creative Writing program at the University of Texas El Paso. 

WHO

by Akua Lezli Hope

Illustration by Tom Bachtell for “Trump’s Confusing Strike On Syria,” The New Yorker, April 17, 2017.

Who calls for walls and not for bridges
whose thoughts line his head in ridges
who calls for denial not acceptance
whose platform was a new intolerance
who launches air strikes and not aid
whose debts have often gone unpaid
whose employees are perforce, afraid
who creates chaos and alternate facts
who baits and switches at the drop of a hat
who denies sanctuary and bans entry
who sends bombs without strategy
who fuels fright and exploits uncertainty
who refuses immigrants and denies refugees
who despoils and blasts the citizenry
who defends perfidy and pretends to care
who launches Tomahawks over there
who keeps a bevy of madmen near
who slow dances with the cold Russian Bear
whose tax filings are still not shared
who starts war and exploits fear
who starts war and exploits fear

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, ornaments, wearables, jewelry, adornments and peace whenever possible. Her work appears in many anthologies and magazines: most recently in Sexuality Anthology,  Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks Dozen, the Best of Breath and Shadow, Faerie Magazine and Andromeda Spaceways #66.