SURVIVOR’S GUILT

by Julie Weiss

“4-year-old migrant girl, other kids go to court in NYC with no lawyer: 'The cruelty is apparent.’” —Gothamist, April 22, 2025

We order mile-high hamburgers,

chicken fingers for the kids,

clink glasses as if the world

isn´t spiraling toward some terrible

demise. There aren´t enough colors

in the complimentary crayon box

to draw the dread prowling

my body, or the howls

of all the people being erased

so I praise my children´s

artwork as if their puppies

and bunnies could charm

the shit off the lips of fascists.

They drag fries through ketchup.

Every analogy on our plates

is a choking hazard. Somewhere

in a country that´s being stripped,

shaved, and tortured, a child

who once celebrated a birthday,

a victory, a graduation, an award

at a restaurant like this one

is being dragged into an unmarked

van. My daughter´s medal glistens

my grief back to me. I blame

the onions, a speck of dust,

yesterday´s pollen. I don´t say

your surnames could get you

arrested, if you lived in the US.

We laugh at the latest memes

as if the faces weren´t fireballs

waiting for the right moment

to mushroom. As if the biggest  

aggravation today is the rain.

Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay books, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II, published by Bottlecap Press. Her second collection Rooming with Elephants was published in February, 2025 by Kelsay Books. "Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children" was selected as a 2023 finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for "Cumbre Vieja" and was a finalist for the 2022 Saguaro Prize. Recent work appears in Variant Lit, The Westchester Review, Up The Staircase Quarterly, and others. Originally from California, she lives with her wife and children in Spain. 

ADULT COLORING BOOKS

by Joan Colby

“Indiana University Press will release the first five titles in a series of adult coloring books, titled Color Your Campus this summer. The five campuses featured are Indiana University, Harvard University, Louisiana State University, Stanford University, and the University of Notre Dame. In a surprising move for a university press, Indiana University Press joins the adult coloring trend to the early delight of college students, parents, fans, and alumni alike. Hobbyists will take pleasure in transforming artists’ black and white masterpieces into colorful flagship campuses while indulging in the comfort of a childhood stress reliever.” —Indiana University Press blog, March 4, 2016. Image source: Global News.

This is what we’ve come to in our dread.
Thumbs fed up with texting.
Vibration in the pocket
Like an IED. Someone’s head
Cut off on TV with a sword.
Red hands of history. So many dead
Of casual bullets. We are consumed
With terror, Sharia law in the hymnals,
Shoe bombs under the bed
And the demand for specialized knowledge,
Who to vote for,
What to buy next.
The world is dishonest. The wiring
In the house not up to code.
Floods on the coast and the caldera
Of Yellowstone that might explode.
We pick up the crayons
Carefully staying within the lines.
Making sure the colors are right.
Blue skies. Green grass.
The sun a peculiar yellow . . .


Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She was a finalist in the GSU Poetry Contest (2007), Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize (2009, 2012), and received honorable mentions in the North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Contest (2008, 2010). She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press) and Dead Horses and Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press. Selected Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize.  Properties of Matter was published in spring of 2014 by Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books). Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2014: Bittersweet (Main Street Rag Press) and Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.