SURVIVOR’S GUILT II

by Julie Weiss

Photo by Seema Miah at Unsplash

It snowed last night, an unusual

enough flurry in our part of Spain

to make the news. Downstairs,

my children pelt each other

with snowballs, their voices

all sparkle and windchime.

The sky, though gray, has no

reason to grieve. I stack dishes

in the sink, sweep up crumbs,

grumble, because who doesn´t

grumble about housework?

If a bang knocks a flock of birds

off course, I assume it´s a car

backfiring, no need to scramble

outside in pajamas, search

the snow for blood. It´s easy

to chide your children for tracking

mud inside when a government

thug isn´t kicking down your door.

Easy to indulge in a cup of hot cocoa,

extra marshmallows please, when

your neck isn´t crushed under

a state-sponsored knee. Tomorrow,

they´ll shove another child into

an unmarked van. Another child´s

mother will vanish, or die. Here,

far from my homeland, the sidewalks

will have frozen over. We´ll glide

to school, graceful as skaters,

hoping not to break any bones

on the hard, hard ice.

Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II. Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, was published in February, 2025. "Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children" was a finalist for Best of the Net, she won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for "Cumbre Vieja," and she was a finalist for the Saguaro Prize. Recent work appears in ONE ART, Stone Circle Review, Gyroscope Review, and is forthcoming in Cimarron Review and MER. She lives with her wife and children in Spain.

THE ONCE AND PRESENT KING

by Ralph La Rosa

Source: Laughter

Viva Joe Biden
Whose power is thriven
A SCOTUS thing
May make him king!

Ralph La Rosa has published prose on major American writers, including Emerson and Thoreau, and has placed short fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and film scripts. These days, he mostly writes poetry, appearing on the Internet, in print journals and anthologies. His books include the chapbook Sonnet Stanzas and full-length Ghost Trees and My Miscellaneous Muse. He Loves The New Verse News!

IT IS THE CLOUDS

by Lindsay Adkins

As soon as I’ve said it I think—

No, that is wrong.

We are eating dinner at the pub, outside

(because COVID)

while rain pelts the tent over our heads,

rushes down the open sides in small rivers,

and thunder stomps across the horizon.

All the things I would gather in my arms

and shove back into the barrel if I could.

My daughter is afraid of the thunder

and asks for a hug. “Demands”

might be a better word choice.

She isn’t yet two, doesn’t know

the different shades of language.

I explain to her it is just the clouds

banging into one another

like legos in her little fists.

Bang bang, she says.

Bang bang.

Everyone at the table laughs.

 

But even as I am saying the words

I think no, that isn’t quite right.

Something to do with lightning,

the sound of air cooling,

counting the seconds

from flash to boom

to find the distance between you

and the bolt.

I have oversimplified it.

You should ask your uncle sometime, I say.

The one who’s a meteorologist.

Bang bang, she says, pounding

her hands together,

already sure in her understanding.

 

My husband’s sister looks at her phone

and sighs.

Another shooting, she says.

In Tulsa. Not a school, a medical building.

 

I wonder if, when I write this poem,

as I know I will,

the rain will be small coins,

or bullets.

Or just rain.

Rain is, after all, rain—

Any good meteorologist will tell you so.

Having spent all our metaphors and similes

for guns and their blooms already,

we go back to our fries and beers.

Bang, my daughter whispers. Bang.

The lightning flashes, and I begin counting:

How long until this word

means something else to her?

Lindsay Adkins is a writer from Western MA whose work has appeared in Electric Lit, Narrative, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, great weather for MEDIA, Frontier Poetry, and So to Speak Journal, among others. She is a recipient of the Amy Award from Poets & Writers, the Phyllis B. Abrahms Award in Poetry, and an Author Fellowship from the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She has an MFA from Stony Brook Southampton. 

CONCEALED CARRY

by Joan Colby

HAYDEN, Idaho — A mom shopping at a Walmart store died Tuesday after her toddler, who was left in a shopping cart, reached into her purse and accidentally discharged her handgun, authorities said. Veronica J. Rutledge, 29, of Blackfoot, Idaho, had gone to the store in this Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, suburb with four children in tow at mid-morning. Her 2-year-old son, who was sitting in the shopping cart, reached into his mother's purse, causing the small-caliber handgun to discharge one time, said Lt. Stu Miller, Kootenai County Sheriff's Office spokesman. "It appears to be a pretty tragic accident," Miller said. Rutledge was dead by the time deputies arrived. --USA Today, December 31, 2014. Image: Veronica J. Rutledge Facebook Photo via The Independent (UK)

A purse is a lure, a bright magnet
For fishing fingers. All kids know
The mom keeps stuff they shouldn’t have,
Shiny car keys, loose change, the tube
Of pills that look like candy.

Grab at her purse to irritate
The mom, to get her attention
As she drifts from aisle to aisle
Deliberating, saying no
To whines and pleas.

This kid, only two, sitting in the cart,
Swung his fat legs and seized
Her purse. A toy like the cops
Have on TV. Says bang
And pulls the trigger. Wow, mom
For just a second, looked mad.
He shut his eyes.

Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize.  Properties of Matter was published in spring of 2014 by Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.