BUNKER HILL

by Betsy Johnson

 

 

 

Maybe history belongs in an aquarium,
sealed glass, nothing escapes,
tourists tapping,
their faces blurring into the water
like fish circling stones,
forgetting how a river ever tasted.

Blindfolds are now built into the monument,
no need to hand them out.
People gather,
guessing at the gaps,
swapping stories about words that used to live here.
There’s a kind of bravery in pretending
not to flinch.

Slavery, taken from the wall.
Women erased,
the ones who refused to fold themselves small.
Immigrants, scratched out.
Only the dead left,
the ones good for a headline in June.
Someone decided truth was too “woke” for the daylight.
Wouldn’t want anyone catching empathy from a plaque.
You stand in front of absence,

try to piece together stories from what’s left in the shadows.

The monument looks lighter,
but the air is heavy,
pressing on your chest,
the way silence does
when no one wants to go first.
Tourists line up for their photos,
kids run the steps.
It gets too easy,
not seeing what isn’t there.

History shrinks down,
something you can keep in your pocket,
hard questions packed away in dust,
stories left behind
because they were too honest to let us sleep.

And I wonder,
what happens to a country
that keeps pretending it’s finished telling the truth,
when everyone who knows better
is still standing here,
waiting for their name to be spoken
in the story that always belonged to them.

Betsy Johnson is a poet, storyteller, educator, and autism specialist whose work explores belonging through disability, caregiving, healthcare, social justice, and the natural world. Her writing weaves personal narrative with larger social questions, tracing how people navigate uncertainty, connection, loss, resilience, and change. Her poem "Mathematics of Mercy," on the human impact of Medicaid policy, was read on the floor of the House of Representatives.

INVASIVE SPECIES

by Rikki Santer

Cartoon by Jack Ohman

Sometimes a jackass

is just a jackass 

a president once said

when he thought

no one was listening.

And some say

that when God

created the world 

he dispatched an angel

with a sack of fools  

to distribute 

one per town,

but the harvest of folly

seems plentiful these days

with its dangerous parable staining.

Tiny phones

in their back pockets

to showcase glowing selfies

and toothy tweets,

all these Looney Tunes legislators

who always have a guy

or know where to get one.

And they fantasize

about winning more

epic battles between

the us and them

or want-to versus should-of.  

Beneath the peels, 

so many sad bananas

vying for the pratfalls

of others.

Beneath their blindfolds, 

they swing hard

at political piñatas 

with tantrums

of taketh away.

Too late to send them

to their rooms to think

of what they’ve done

or have them vulcanized

when Mars attacks.

Their heads brim

with knuckles clenched

feverous for playing

again and again

their most favorite game—

capture the flag.

And now fat-fingered justices

join in.

In 2023, Rikki Santer was named Ohio Poet of the Year. Her forthcoming collection, Shepherd’s Hour, won the Paul Nemser Book Prize from Lily Poetry Review Books.