HERE LIE DEAD IN TEXAS

by Amy Worley

Nick Anderson

Here lie dead

a star gazer

a trailblazer

a bodhisattva

2 artists with tiny Mona Lisas

stamped on their still small spirts

not yet emerged.

 

Here lie dead

two seasoned, storied, spirit guides,

who were delicately, precisely, so, so lightly,

tending gossamer spirits.

 

Here lie dead

would-be mothers &

would-be fathers &

all the glorious would-be children &

all the would-be made inside them.

 

Here lie dead

among the bullets & bone fragments

unwritten books & unbuilt churches

un-prayed prayers in the

dark, wet cave of adolescence.

 

Here lie dead

the African-descended

the Mexican-descended

the whatever mix descended

double helixes no longer spiraling.

 

Among the dead

slivering over bloody bodies &

and rising up to stare us in our unseeing eyes

is the serpent of our failure.

 

Not an either/or failure but a slimy sludge

of yes/and foundering and non-doing,

with a forked tongue &

voluminous, sweet-smelling venom.

 

Here lie dead

in this community graveyard

a virologist

an ecologist

a drummer

a plumber

a shattered grandmother whose shards pierce like shrapnel.

 

Here lie dead

what we didn’t do to serve an unwell young man &

what we didn’t do to protect the hatching of the future.

 

Here lie dead

we all

knowing of good & evil

and choosing to hide behind the tall, dark tree

rather than stand naked in the dappled light of truth.

 

Amy Worley is a poet and nonfiction writer living in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, two boys, and her literary dog, Leroy. She is also an attorney and management consultant. She has a BA in English Literature and a Juris Doctorate. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared in various online and hardcopy publications.

COON CAT TUESDAY

by Jan Steckel

Nick Anderson

Sunny sweats on her stoop,

says she’s seen raccoons and cats

mating in her backyard. They’ve bred

a tribe of unholy hell beasts,

coon cats, who haunt the bushes.

She also says we shouldn’t call the cops

if her ex violates the restraining order again.

She doesn’t know whose blood

stains the street today,

the woman gunned down in front

of Carlos’s taco truck. Helicopters

roar overhead, caution tape and wagons

cut off our exit from the block for hours

as officers snap photos, pick up shell casings.

People carry out chairs to sit and watch.

The children are all walleyed and gabbling:

¡Pistolas! ¡Policía! ¡Ambulancia!

Everyone has Covid, except those out

dodging bullets. In Texas, someone shot up

a school again, but that seems far away.

Jan Steckel’s book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, 2018) won Rainbow Awards for LGBT Poetry and Best Bisexual Book. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. She lives in Oakland, California, USA.