WE THE FAMILIES

by Lao Rubert

Photo: GORDON PARKS / GORDON PARKS FOUNDATION accompanying “Becoming a Parent in the Age of Black Lives Matter,” The Atlantic, June 2, 2020.

Today, I join the tribe that lives in fear
of a son traveling the wrong neighborhood,
knowing he will be watched,
viewed with suspicion
his powerful body seen
as threat only, object for capture.

I join the tribe of families
whose sons, husbands, nephews
have been swept up, swept in,
by the machine turning its massive rollers
over their muscular frames.
                                                                     
I join the families saying,
“Take care where
and how you drive your car,
your body
might be too beautiful.
It may frighten them.”                                      

I join families advising, “Think
where to put your hands if stopped.
Though you are quick, make no movements;
though you carry no weapon,
do not open your glove box.
These are things you must know.”

We, the families,                                                          
wait on the courtroom’s hard benches
as officials toss sentences into the air like confetti          
watching as the crane they call justice
swings its giant arm, its heavy bucket        
over the heads of young men forever standing
in the wrong place.

We listen to guards tell our lovely ones    
Where to stand, to sit
when to speak
how their jump suits must be worn,
their pant legs rolled.

We listen to prosecutors
who have no words written
or whispered
about hope
that hummingbird that keeps a young man alive
when trouble comes clanging in over the rooftops.
Where have they hidden it
and why?              

Lao Rubert is a poet and advocate for criminal justice reform living in Durham, North Carolina. Her poems have appeared in the N.C. Independent, the Davidson Miscellany, the Duke University Archive, the News & Observer and are scheduled to appear in Barzakh in May, 2020.

WITH A FACE LIKE MINE

by Rachel Mallalieu

I don’t want this to be 
about me, but of course it’s
always about me

With a face like mine,
a thousand ships were launched,
so needful were men of my rescue

With a face like mine,
a few words were said and
a fourteen-year-old boy was
beaten, shot and tossed
into the Tallahatchie River

With a face like mine, feel free
to burst into a black man’s home
while he’s eating ice cream
and demand that he shows you
his hands, and when he does not,
you can shoot him
when his blood stains the floor and
you realize your mistake,
stand in the hallway
and text instead of performing CPR

With a face like mine, the jury will
cry because you clearly didn’t mean
to do it, and (despite the racist texts)
you seem guileless, even
penitent (especially when you say
you wish you had died instead)
yes they find you guilty, but the bailiff
will smooth your hair and the
judge will give you her Bible
you will receive a light sentence
and still be young enough to bear children
once you’ve served your time

With a face like mine,
when the anguished brother
of the man you murdered embraces you
and offers forgiveness,
many will see your blonde hair next to
his black skin and consider
the sordid case closed

With a face like mine,
tears are weapons
so really, you should be careful
with a face like mine

Rachel Mallalieu is an Emergency Physician and mother of five. She writes poetry in her spare time. Her work has been featured in Blood and Thunder and is upcoming in Haunted Waters Press.

COLORING

by Laura Lee Washburn

This drawing is part of an exhibition in Tucson, AZ of original watercolors and other artworks by kids whose families have fled to the U.S. seeking asylum. Casa Alitas operates a refugee shelter in a former Benedictine Monastery and offers art-making classes to traumatized kids released from detention.

“It’s not what you look at that matters,

  it’s what you see.”

—Henry David Thoreau

In the blue pool with jogging women
every morning this month I’ve seen
in distant tree yellow busted balloon.

I have ridden the packed dirt
on a brown three-speed bike
almost into long black snake.

I have been to the marsh
where green leaves reflect
from brown tannin waters.
I will go there again.

I have felt unease, eaten
too much sugar, sagged
at the loneliness of bad friendships.

I’ve helped light one hundred and forty candles
after dark, listened to testimony, heard
the names of six dead migrant children:

Darlyn, Jakelin, Felipe, Juanito, Wilmer, Carlos.
I’ve read the judicial arguments on soap
and sleep, toothpaste, blankets.

When the green leaves blow,
I watch through bamboo blinds,
live action but dim impressions of bright.

I have driven in blind white
sun on the turnpike’s upward curve
and made it south enough to see again.

I have driven twenty in storm
shocking white water rains
when the pea-sized summer hail
begins to tap.
I have not turned
around at the lake in the road.
 —I have judged and been judged—

Stupid people    this local woman
hosted a vigil because of “images” she saw.
How does she know [How does she know?]
the images are really detention centers?
    people who serve the DARK!
    scum invading      disease and violence
our president taking down the evil
Stop believing or search for the truth
everything is really a lie!

Laura Lee Washburn has taught how to tell creditable sources from biased sources, has never been held in a cell, and donates her time to a Southeast Kansas organization that helps women in poverty resolve crises.

THE ROAD TO ACQUITTAL ROAD

by A.J. Huffman



seems to lead to Florida.
To unpredictable judges and juries that care
more about holiday weekends and release
from sequestering than thoughtful consideration
of evidence, appropriating punishments
befitting the crimes.  To televised courtrooms
and litigation as the latest national pastime.
To reporters who lack proper research skills
and knowledge, but excel at sensationalism
and working up the viewing masses.  To underpaid
prosecutors and overpaid defenders, both paying
more attention to the fine print of their book contracts
than the necessary loopholes rampantly found
in evidentiary procedures, waiting to swallow
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So help them.  God?


A.J. Huffman has published five solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses.  Her sixth solo chapbook will be published in October by Writing Knights Press.  She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and the winner of the 2012 Promise of Light Haiku Contest.  Her poetry, fiction, and haiku have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation.  She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.