ESCAPE

by Paul Hostovsky

He crab-walked up and out of there
and I can’t help admiring him a little for that

especially since they keep replaying it on TV 
and thousands of cops are combing Pennsylvania 

and they haven’t found him yet. And I can’t help
rooting for him a little as though he were

the underdog, and not a killer who stabbed
his girlfriend to death in front of her children.

My God. They will never get over that. Have you
ever found yourself rooting for the wrong 

side? Crab-walking is moving sort of sideways
and diagonally in an awkward, furtive manner. 

Please pass the popcorn. I wonder if they’ll ever
find him. Voyeurism is sort of furtively taking

pleasure in disaster, catastrophe, pain, and without
ever feeling the pain, or ever getting caught.

Paul Hostovsky's poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer's Almanac, and the Best American Poetry blog.

CAUGHT IN BETWEEN

by Phyllis Frakt

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has blocked a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies from being taught in high schools, saying it violates state law and is historically inaccurate. The state education department rejected the program in a letter last week to the College Board, which oversees AP classes. Florida education officials did not specify exactly what content the state found objectionable but said, “As presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.” …In a statement, the College Board said, “Like all new AP courses, AP African American Studies is undergoing a rigorous, multi-year pilot phase, collecting feedback from teachers, students, scholars and policymakers.”—AP, January 20, 2023. PHOTOS: From left to right: Poet and social activist Langston Hughes, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and novelist Toni Morrison. All three are among the Black luminaries taught as part of a new AP African American Studies course that is being piloted in high schools across the U.S. Getty Images via TIME

I thought I was born at the perfect time

when fear yielded to democracy

and morality’s arc bent toward justice.

Hopeful they seemed, the sweet years between.

           

But now a time of conspiring tyrants

whose denials belie repeated crimes.

Facts scrapped for lies online and prime time.

I curse the reversal of sweet years between.

          

Skeptics deem all a delusion, a dream.

Grand claims of progress dismiss history

of morality deferred, justice rebuffed.

Deceived by smokescreen, those years between.

 

Some drag with doubt, some dare to dream,

I’m with still others, caught in between.

Phyllis Frakt, formerly an academic administrator, has moved from writing memos to writing poems. Her poem “Recoveries” (2022) appeared in Worksheets 67. Her poem “Teach to the Test" appeared in The New Verse News, also in 2022. She lives in New Jersey.