DEPARTMENT OF OFFENSE

by Pamela Kenley-Meschino

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday that the U.S. Navy was renaming the U.S.N.S. Harvey Milk, a fleet replenishment ship that had been named for a Navy veteran who was one of the country’s first openly gay elected officials. —The New York Times, June 27, 2025

Whitewash the walls of history,
erase names preserved by heart in print.
Cleanse the bows of ships 
so they sail free of reminders
or memorial suggestion.
Forget you heard it here, where someone 
stood for the voiceless inheritors,
crossed lines for the dispossessed,
or raised flags in mutinous colors of freedom.
Toss stories into fire pits, ashes to ashes, 
amnesia thick. Footprints embedded in truth
brushed aside like counterfeit ledgers going nowhere. 
 
Even with evidence destroyed or misidentified, 
these burials are not complete. Beneath layers of deception,
lies ferment in Earth’s volcanic depths, lives remembered 
for their audacious bravery walk from graves 
that were never deep enough to hold them down.

Pamela Kenley-Meschino is originally from the UK, where she developed a love of nature, poetry, and music, thanks in part to the influence of her Irish mother. She is an educator whose classes explore the connection between writing and healing and the importance of shared stories.

CUAUHTÉMOC

by Jennifer Hernandez

For the crew members who lost their lives in the tragic crash of the Mexican tall ship into the Brooklyn Bridge. The ship, Cuauhtémoc, was named after the last Aztec emperor.

 
Sometimes the power goes out. 
Sometimes, it’s smallpox. 
 
The most inconsequential events 
can change the course of a river, 
the course of a life. 
 
We never know 
where the journey will end. 
Nor when. 
 
The leader this morning 
might be gone by nightfall. 
 
Through it all, the currents 
keep pushing us forward. 
 
Each moment we are closer 
to the finale. So we must 
choose to resist 
with all our might. 
 
Like Cuauhtémoc—
to never give up, 
never give in, 
never compromise 
who we are and 
what we believe 
to be true. 
 
We must don the fairy lights, 
wave the big, beautiful flag. 
 
We must stand on the bow, 
watch as the sunset plays 
between clouds at dusk, 
glimmers on the water’s surface.
 
Life is fragile. 
Life is glorious. 
 
La vida siempre 
vale la pena vivirla.

Jennifer Hernandez lives in Minnesota where she teaches immigrant youth and writes poetry, flash, and creative non-fiction. Once again, her recent writing has been colored by her distress at the dangerous nonsense that appears in her daily news feed. She is marching with her pen. Pushcart-nominated, her work appears in such publications as Sleet Magazine, Heron Tree, Northern Eclecta, and Silver Birch Press. She is working on a chapbook of hybrid writing about teaching as a political act.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

by Juditha Dowd

Moon Behind the Oak, a photograph by Alinore Rose

Instead I watched the moon. I watched the moon climb up

the branches of the Rosenbauers’ oak and lift off into open sky.

By then a few stars and planets had pierced the urban night,

their sparkle suggesting forward movement as I viewed them

alone from our porch—it seemed they were headed somewhere.

Soon I was so caught up in thinking about their voyage

I forgot about the frost and the ruined tomatoes and the ruin

of where we’re headed here on earth, driven by barking dogs.

Is it better now that we understand the stars? Was it easier to believe

that all is preordained and all we need to do is bow our heads

and go along? I watched the moon find the windows of every house

on our block. Same moon, same light. I watched until it crested

and fell down our hill toward the college. Then there was nothing

to do but go back in.

 

Juditha Dowd’s latest book is Audubon’s Sparrow (Rose Metal Press, 2020).