WHY I SHOW UP ON WEDNESDAY AT 4:30 PM ON THE CURB ACROSS FROM 188 HARVEST LANE IN MY HOMETOWN

by Tricia Knoll

Google Maps photo of 188 Harvest Lane, Williston. It houses the "Law Enforcement Support Center," ie the ICE national data collection facility.

Because I can carry a chair to sit in for one hour

Because I remember what sit in means

Because they will not let us be on their side of the street

Because workers inside need a gated parking lot 

Because the building has only mirror windows

Because we can’t see inside but know enough

Because workers inside can see out

Because they shuffle national data about who will be deported from where and when

Because they maneuver to disappear people 

Because they refuse to share information

Because on this side of the street, we are 13, a jury plus one

Because we vow silence, meditate, stare back at their mirror glass

Because fear brings me back 

Because where else will my tears go

Tricia Knoll lives not far from this ICE national data collection facility in Williston, Vermont. She has joined a group of people to sit across the street from this facility on Wednesday afternoons to remind ourselves and others driving by that the machinations of ICE are continuous, ongoing.

YAWN

by Rose Mary Boehm

This week, Key West, Fla., experienced record-high temperatures, with a heat index of 115 degrees. Even the late Jimmy Buffett would have had trouble finding enough margaritas for that. Parts of South Florida were also hit by smoke from wildfires burning hundreds of miles away in Mexico. This is also the week that Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that removes the words climate change from many state laws. —NPR, May 17, 2024

So they had another party. 

Too high, too drunk, too wasted, they didn't notice

when half their guests and a major piece of their huge

garden disappeared, pulled into the ink-dark waters

by an enormous, merciless hand.

They laughed when the swimming pool followed.

But suddenly they woke and looked at each other's distorted faces

in horror, then drifted off

with the competing currents.

There was no-one to look for their bloated bodies,

because there was no-one left to care.

And the sharks inherited the waters.

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as eight poetry collections. She was three times nominated for a Pushcart and once for Best of Net. Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders? (Kelsay Books 2022), Whistling in the Dark (Cyberwit 2022), and Saudade (2022) are available on Amazon. Also available on Amazon is a new collection Life Stuff published by Kelsay Books in 2023.

BEFORE I KNEW ADAM HAD DIED

by Susan Vespoli

a hummingbird flittered on the other side of the glass 

patio door    a feathered sprite that stayed   stared

       at me     hovered like an airborne messenger     stayed 

       until I rose to face it      look into its seed-bead eyes

watch its wings thrum      to keep body aloft      its face

breathing in mine      until it released me       lifted off

       toward the pot of geraniums      breathed in billowy

       red petals      sipped nectar      through its dart-sharp beak

darted around the yard    like a small soft helicopter

and then      whoosh     disappeared over the fence. I didn’t know

       my son had already disappeared    from this human life

       or that I’d google to find a hummer is a symbol for freedom

and “may be a sign that a loved one has successfully made it

(like the hummingbird) to the other side   and is doing just fine.”

Editor's Note: Susan Vespoli’s son Adam, shot and killed by police last week, appeared in many of her poems, including "Chicken" and "Alex's Teeth" (Alex = code name for Adam) in The New Verse News.

Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, Arizona where the opioid epidemic is still alive and well.