SONNET FOR THE COMPTROLLER

by Beth Cleary

He is showing us what to say, how to be, when
they come for us: upright, measured in tone and gaze,
Do you have a judicial warrant? You do not have 
the authority to arrest U.S. citizens. Show me
your judicial warrant. These are the ways, the phrases,
memorize them. I have memorized them, in the night
when footage of the arrest—I am not
obstructing anything I am standing here—replays
in the basement of my heart, near where my diaphragm
tucks up, presses down, basement where I store
cups, snippets, grains of information, instructions
for later. For when they come for us, soft body and cheek
jammed against a pillow/wall, gloved hands breaking our backs.

Beth Cleary's essays and poems appear in Ninth Letter, The Maine Review, Artist & Influence, Fourth Genre, and other publications. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the main No Kings! march was upwards of 60,000 strong despite shock about assassinations, unknowns about an active shooter, and warnings to stay away. 

ANOTHER BREXIT POEM

by Freya Jackson

Three years on & Brexit
is still hypothetical, defined only
as itself, by itself. Brexit is Brexit.
It has been measured, weighed.

It is no heavier than
the glue on the back of a postage
stamp (and tastes like God save
us all) and it is no lighter than

the shield of Saint George,
built from jingoism & thin plastic
painted to look like bronze;
it is ungraspable: too like itself to hold.

This land inherits division
from itself. Brexit, Brexit, Brexit,
something is chanting in the street,
I am not sure who is speaking

or what they want from me.
Every day thousands of calls
gush into the home office, each
orison: all these years, I’ve been here,

lived here, pay taxes, have loved,
even the rain, isn’t that what home is:
the sound of your keys dropped in
the bowl by the door, I need to know,

how much more, please, hold,
please, hold, please, please,
listen—isn’t the definition of citizen
those who live inside the city?

Even the smog outside us is swollen
with conjecture. Doubt distorts
thought. Every time we attempt
to perceive the word

it loses some part of itself:
look at a thing often enough,
it loses definition, becomes
sharp toothed & meaningless.

Strip the bones off of a ghost
& you are left only with hot air.
Bodiless, it winds around us all—
certain only in its uncertainty.

Freya Jackson is a writer from Leeds. Her poetry has previously been published in places including Magma, Arc Magazine, The Cadaverine and The Interpreters House. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her graphic short story “Joy” in 2016. She is a winner of one of New Writing North’s New North Poets Awards for 2019.

A DREAM ACT

by Sandra Larson

        In memory of Joaquin Luna Jr.

18-year-old Joaquin Luna Jr. took his own life in November 2011 in his home in Mission, Texas. His parents reported he was depressed because, although a very good student, he was receiving only rejection letters from colleges and was also disappointed when the Dream Act failed to pass through the US Congress.  He did receive one acceptance letter after his death. 

Image source: Tucson Citizen

 

He pressed the revolver

underneath his chin

and fired.  

Its force

toppling

his forest

of feeling,

a wind storm

sapping his life

pieces now

splattered

on the bathroom tiles.

Quiet,

hear the dripping

of hope, the draining

of dreams for college,

a career in engineering.  Blue-

prints on the floor.

His desk is neat.

Letters stacked

upon it ask,

Are you a citizen?

The steely word –illegal?

Illegal, illegal

echoes

through the rooms

ricocheting

off his parents,

brothers’ grief.

The only response,

of puffed-up politicians,

Build a wall, build a wall, a wall!

America shoots another one.

A native of New Jersey, Sandra Sidman Larson is a retired manager and leader from the nonprofit world in the Twin Cities of Minnesota who has lived and traveled coast to coast and across the seven continents for work and for adventure. She’s been writing poetry for a quarter century and most recently she was selected for the Foreword Program at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, a program established to assist promising writers produce a manuscript for publication. Along the way she has seen her poems appear in magazines and journals and she also has three published chapbooks.  In 1996 poet Naomi Shihab Nye nominated her for a Pushcart Prize.