RISKY

by Colette Tennant

People walk past a crater from the explosion in Mira Avenue (Avenue of Peace) in Mariupol on March 13. (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP via The Washington Post, March 15, 2022)

streets filled with rubble,

a bombed maternity hospital, pregnant women

bloodied, lying on gurneys in a swirl of confusion,

Sasha, a baby goat with broken front legs,

trying to nurse a vet tech’s ear.

Her owner promised she’d return for her

because she loves her.

 

We watch the news from Ukraine –

refugees bundled against late-winter cold,

In between these stories, news channels

run commercials for various cures –

Nucala for severe asthma sounds great,

but it might cause shingles.

Trelegy treats COPD yet increases

the risk of thrush, pneumonia

and osteoporosis.

Farxiga, for chronic  kidney disease,

could lead to dehydration, fainting, weakness,

genital redness and swelling, and hypoglycemia. 

 

It’s a tricky balance,

the cure and its reaction, so

military experts sit with newscasters,

their hands folded on the studio table.

They discuss various scenarios

for how to help Ukraine, each one

peppered with what ifs.

One possible cure – establish a no-fly zone

unless Putin reacts with chemical weapons.

Supply warplanes to the Ukrainians,

order an airstrike on that 40-mile-long convoy,

but any of those moves might start World War III.

It’s a terrible quandary,

this war we watch between commercials –

trying to find a remedy for this devastation,

knowing the reaction may be awful.

 

Colette Tennant is an English professor living in Salem, Oregon. She has two books of poetry: Commotion of Wings, published by Main Street Rag, and Eden and After, published by Tebot Bach. Her most recent book, Religion in The Handmaid’s Tale: a Brief Guide, was published in September, 2019 to coincide with Atwood’s publication of The Testaments. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and have appeared in various journals, including Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Ireland Review, and Southern Poetry Review.

SUPERHEROES

by Katherine West 




In the movies they dodge bullets
Jump back up and make jokes
Jack-in-the-boxes all of them
Good role models for poor folk

Who wake up screaming in the night
So loud throats hurt in the morning
Drive-by shootings only in the mind
Past, present, and dream all folding

Into tiny cranes too delicate to fly
Their origami necks long and thin
Wings stretched wide
Trying to remember wind

The lifting into something greater
Than sky yet made for paper

Katherine West is the author of three collections of poetry and one novel: Scimitar Dreams, The Bone Train, Riddle, and Lion Tamer, respectively.  She has had poetry published in Bombay Gin, Lalitamba, Tanka Journal, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and TheNewVerse.News who nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019.  She lives in the mountains outside of Silver City, New Mexico where she translates Mexican revolutionary poetry and creates custom, hand-made poetry chapbooks.  

SENT HOME TO DIE: US IMMIGRATION POLICY IN 2018

by Barbara J. Clark

As a growing number of families are separated as part of the Trump administration’s attempt to control illegal immigration, some parents are being deported before recovering their children.. —Miriam Jordan, The New York Times, June 17, 2018. Photo credit Marian Carrasquero/The New York Times.

Someone has killed my husband and is trying to kill me and my children.

I run away from the killer and towards your home for many days and nights,

Because

I want to live and I want my children to live.

I know your home is a safe haven for us.

Exhausted and hungry we finally make it to your doorstep.

And knock on your door,

But you don’t answer.

We camp out on your front porch for many days and nights.

We knock on your door,

Every day.

But you don’t answer.

We are out of food and water and my baby is running a fever.

In desperation,

I enter your home through an open window.

I find you and tell you I have entered,

Whereupon

You tell me I am a criminal

Because

I entered your home through a window and not the door.

I try to tell you why,

But you won’t listen or don't understand my language.

Instead,

You put me in jail,

You kidnap my children,

You tell me I am a bad mother,

And that I should never have come,

That I should never have run from this killer.

The next day,

You stop kidnapping the children of those coming through the window.

Excitedly,

I ask you, "where are my children and when can I see them?"

You tell me you don’t know or care where they are.

That I should never have run from this killer.

And that I should never have come.

You tell me I am a bad mother,

And have lost my children.

You send me home

TO DIE.

Barbara J. Clark is a registered patent attorney with 24 years of experience drafting and prosecuting patent applications before the USPTO. She currently runs her own patent law firm in Ames, Iowa. She also enjoys writing picture books, social commentary and humorous memoirs. Last week, Ms. Clark, together with over 5000 other attorneys nationwide, signed up to volunteer through Lawyers For Good Government to help provide pro bono legal services to those seeking asylum. She will be training and working remotely on various activities, including immigration parole bond hearings and legal research and writing. She also signed up with the Dilley Project and will be going to Dilley, Texas in August, with an interpreter, to help prepare mothers (whose children are with them) for their “credible fear” interviews.