NEX

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

In his three years as state superintendent for Oklahoma’s public schools, Ryan Walters, a former high school history teacher, has transformed himself into one of the most strident culture warriors in a state known for sharp-edged conservative politics. Following the death earlier this month of a 16-year-old nonbinary student a day after an altercation in a high school girls’ bathroom, gay and transgender advocates accused Mr. Walters of having fomented an atmosphere of dangerous intolerance within public schools. In his first interview reacting to the death of the student, Nex Benedict, Mr. Walters told The New York Times that the death was a tragedy, but that it did not change his views on how questions of gender should be handled in schools. “There’s not multiple genders. There’s two. That’s how God created us,” Mr. Walters said, saying he did not believe that nonbinary or transgender people exist. He said that Oklahoma schools would not allow students to use preferred names or pronouns that differ from their birth sex. “You always treat individuals with dignity or respect, because they’re made in God’s image,” Mr. Walters said. “But that doesn’t change truth.” —The New York Times, February 23, 2024. A state senator [Oklahoma Republican State Sen. Tom Woods] said during a public forum in Tahlequah that LGBTQ+ people are “filth,” and that he and his constituents don’t want them in “our state.” —Tahlequah Daily Press, February 23, 2024. The police released video of the student, Nex Benedict, recounting the altercation a day before their death, which has drawn national scrutiny. —The New York Times, February 24, 2024

 

 
People insist flyover country 
gets a bad rap. It’s a place of trigger
happy Trumpy fundamentalists 
and bigots, dull and flat, filled with hate
incensed that Jackson could be replaced
by Tubman on the twenty where school 
principals don’t call ambulances 
when students are beaten for being 
who they are and thanks to someone named 
Chaya you can’t access the works of Toni 
Morrison or Kwame Alexander don’t you dare 
mention Harry Potter.
 
In the past I’ve insisted 
you can find fine dining 
excellent wine 
and terrific company anywhere
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
the flatlands are profound places
perfect for soul searching silence 
 
and now there are fine vineyards 
everywhere, even places where few
people if anyone speak French. 
 
But I feel prepared to recant 
any previous defense 
because you won’t be killed 
for using a bathroom
just anywhere. 
 
The State of Oklahoma has decided 
it officially, legally hates people 
who see themselves as people 
first, rather than female or male
 
and so a person 
—aren’t we all people first—
named Nex died 
after they 
a person 
used a bathroom for girls 
but some other girls backed
by the State of Oklahoma 
decided Nex shouldn’t 
because they wouldn’t 
say (like Beyoncé once did) 
if I were a boy 
 
it makes me think of the old bad days 
when people of color had to piss 
their pants because of No Service 
they could not be caught taking a leak 
in the street or out back of a building 
since the law 
always in vigilante hands  
would catch them dead 
for answering nature’s call. 
 
Oh, nature. Evil since Eve ate the apple. 
The State of Oklahoma seems to think 
nothing has changed since fictional Adam
couldn’t die when someone reached into 
his chest cavity—in a time before antiseptics—
and stole his rib, to plant in the Earth 
all so this curious miracle could be betrayed 
by one of only two genders. 
 
I want to ask those legislators 
in flyover Oklahoma and the 10  
states whose lawgivers spend their 
time snooping in stalls
(I want to ask my question preferably 
to their face)
 
And who’s the snake?  

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in Canada. Recent work appears/will appear in Terrain.org, Belt, Rattle, Wilderness House, Mad In America, Writers Resist, Poetica Review, and Unlikely Stories. Jeremy’s latest book is Flint River published by Alien Buddha Press 2023.

HOW TO WRITE ABOUT A WOMAN WHO JUMPED OFF A CLIFF

by Luisa Villani

                                    poem pulled from Los Angeles local news, March 10, 2010


A live interview has a witness saw her “dangling”
from a tree outstretched from the sheer cliff-face
before she lost her grip.  Did she "jump”
or just merely "slide?"  The different news outlets
can't seem to agree on this point (her predicament),
nor on whether she was attacked by a rapist,
a would-be rapist, or an attacker. 
What is for sure:  she was on top of the cliff
and something happened, and when the paramedics
got to her, she was at the bottom of the cliff,
and the person who was with her at the top of the cliff,
or who confronted her at the top of the cliff,
or whom she encountered at the cliff top,
got away with her wedding band and her SUV (or her car).
How do you write about the woman, the cliff,
the other, the ocean, the sky's nothing embrace,
the woman above, the woman below?
How do you get it right?  Is there a "right"
when faced with loss, a right way to pick
between two losses, pick which one is greater,
which one is lesser, which one you'd rather lose?
If NPR says she "slid" and CBS says she "jumped"
who picked the right verb?  Sure, you can bicker
about the geography of Point Dume, its rocky face,
its sandy top, and you can guess the extent of her struggle,
the intent of his actions, but let's get one thing straight. 
There was a "him," and there was a "her," and in the long
history of him and her, how many times has SHE
actually had a choice?  And how many times has that choice
been between nothingness, and the horror of something?
Remember the days when she was told not to struggle,
to belay nothingness by submitting to something,
and then the later days when she was told
THAT was in fact wrong?  And if you want to forget
about the him and her, and return to the safe ground
of geography, the "just the facts M'am,”
let me ask you this (yes, there is also a me and a you here,
and you know you've already decided which one
you are), consider where you are right now,
if you’re running from this poem,
and if you really had a choice.


Luisa Villani is a former Wallis Annenberg Fellow at The University of Southern California, who currently resides in New Jersey.  She can't seem to land in the middle.

WHEN ISRAEL WAS ATTACKED

by Laura Eklund

"Contrary Theses,"Acrylic on Canvas by Laura Eklund

I imagined men in bare feet
and soldiers building the toolbox
that was never big enough.
Half of the stars forgot to see
though I could see Heaven
dotting the sky
in the far-off distance.
We talked over dinner
with faces in the background
though it was barely enough
the roots of the earth kept growing
toward the aspects.
Compressing the story
that could never be told

the protestations of children
tucked into the night.


Laura Eklund is an artist and poet. She lives and works in Olive Hill, KY with the poet George Eklund and their four chldren. She has been writing poetry since she learned to read and write, which was about third grade. She writes in order to breathe and survive.