TO A SUFFRAGIST FROM HER NEIGHBOR

by Jan Chronister

Actress Dorothy Newell “Creates Sensation with Suffrage Plea Painted On Her Pretty Back,” The Topeka State Journal, November 6, 1915. Photo: Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress.

You return from the protest,

VOTES FOR WOMEN

painted in perfect letters

across your broad back

bared by a daring dress,

hair a mess, banded

with a sequined scarf. 

You look tired from the fight.

Please don’t end up in jail

like Alice Paul. Put on

some clothes. Stay home

with your child. 

We don’t need the vote.

Jan Chronister splits her year between northern Wisconsin and southern Georgia. She has authored three full-length poetry collections and ten chapbooks. Her most recent is the fifth annual chapbook recounting the year through poems. Jan poetry appears in numerous print and online journals and anthologies. She also enjoys helping fellow poets publish their work.

VIRA

by Jaime Banks

A mother who scrawled contact details on her two-year-old daughter's back while fleeing Ukraine has described to the BBC her desperation in that moment. Sasha Makoviy said she wrote little Vira's name, age and some phone numbers on her, in case the family were separated or killed while fleeing Kyiv. "In case of our death, she could be found and would know who she is," Ms Makoviy explained. The family are now in France where they feel "surrounded with love and care". —BBC, April 12, 2022

Her Kyiv apartment shakes

from the bombing. A woman

draws her two-year old close,

with permanent pen

scrawls the name Vira 

her birth date

parent’s names

grandparents’ names

telephone numbers

on the child’s slender back,

her hand shaking. 

If something happens,

she slants to think,

may this child be delivered

into familiar arms.

Numbers inked on skin

once a sign of barbarity,

now a mother’s only prayer.

Jaime Banks writes about family, home, and spirituality in everyday experience. She was recently awarded first place prize in the Bethesda Local Writer’s Showcase Poetry Contest, and her work is featured in the anthology Leading from Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead. A communications specialist and freelance writer, she resides in the DC area.