FOR THE WATCHERS

by Greg Watson

 

 

Driving my daughter to school this morning, circling the block past the long line of buses, we notice again the parents and neighbors who now stand watch on each corner, braving the sub-zero St. Paul air like half-frozen shepherds, red hearts stitched to their bright yellow vests. Some wave, some sway from side to side in puffy down jackets and snowsuits, silver whistles dangling, as if this were a dance with music only they could hear. "I'm glad they're here," my daughter says. "But I wish they didn't have to be." I nod in agreement. I miss the fourth grade crossing guards, their orange plastic flags waving up and down in sync, laughing with each other, looking each way twice. Though they have not disappeared as the others have—Amalia, Valentina, Angeles, Santiago, Liam, Diego—stolen and flown by secrecy of night to a windowless room thirteen hundred miles away. Stolen by those who call themselves the law. Last night my daughter stayed up past bedtime reading a book about the Montana grizzly attacks of 1967. I asked if was too scary, too intense, and whether it might give her nightmares. "No," she said evenly, "wild animals don't scare me, or natural disasters. Only people sometimes. Only people."

Greg Watson's work has been featured in numerous literary journals and anthologies, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He is the author of eleven collections of poetry, most recently Stars Unseen (Holy Cow! Press). He is also co-editor of The Road by Heart: Poems of Fatherhood (Nodin Press). His forthcoming collection, The Shape of Your Absence, will be published by One Subject Press in April. 

MOTHER’S MILK

by Jan Chronister

file photo of mother labeling frozen breast milk

When one mother was taken by ICE, another stepped in to donate breastmilk  —The 19th, February 2, 2026

Nursing moms in Minneapolis

pump, save their extra breast milk,

share it with those who have babies

left in their care, their mothers

disappeared by ICE.

The milk is frozen,

delivered when needed in coolers.

Right now there is no danger

it will thaw out on the way.

What kind of people

abduct a nursing mother?

Leaves behind an infant,

sometimes alone?

What happened to dry up

the milk of human kindness

in their hearts?

Moms in Minneapolis hope

when the weather warms up,

and the ice melts, 

they no longer need to worry.

Jan Chronister is a retired educator who splits her year between the extremes of northern Wisconsin (by Lake Superior) and southern Georgia. She has authored three full-length poetry collections and twelve chapbooks. Jan edits and publishes the work of fellow poets under the imprint of Poetry Harbor.

THE THEOLOGY OF ICE

by Stuart Broughton

A protester carries a US flag through teargas launched to clear protesters outside the Broadview immigration processing centre in Chicago. —The Guardian, October 3, 2025

NBC Chicago's investigative team reports at least 3,000 jailed immigrants have vanished from federal records, according to human rights attorneys and organizations. 

All across America
people are 
disappearing.
One minute
they're here
and the next
they're gone. 
Disappeared,
dissolved,
dematerialised.
Deported.
Detained.

It's an American
Rapture. 
The Rapture,
but only in
America.

Those of us
brought up
on such theological
dogmas
know that this 
expulsion of the
saints will
usher in
a tribulation.
As if things
could get
worse.

The thing we got wrong
was that instead of the angels
doing the Lord’s work,
it’s the agents 
doing the Devil’s.

As my old pastor
used to say,
“Fuck”.

Stuart Broughton. Gen-something. Library-adjacent. Tangata Tiriti. Libra. From  Aotearoa | New Zealand. Trying to work it out.

INDIVISIBLE, WE STAND

by Darrell Petska

Have you noticed how crowded
America’s thin air has become?

Now it’s homeless humans
joining immigrant humans,
LGBTQIA humans,
Black humans—assorted humans
of every persuasion, more
and more each day, into thin air.

Or so would hearts shriveled by hate
and power lusts have us believe:
think Hitler and Pol Pot, Pinochet
in Chile, Netanyahu in Gaza, and
America’s Trump disappearing souls
who don’t fit white, regressive ideals.

But the disappeared, the disparaged,
do not go away, whether the living
to whom we owe their dignity as they
pursue universally human needs
and aspirations, or the dead
to whom we owe life’s memory.

To our own selves, as well, we owe
the essential humaneness we ask
of all other humans. There can be
no invisibility, only indivisibility.
We are one body. That which divides
we must call out: inhuman!

Darrell Petska is a retired university engineering editor and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Father of five and grandfather of seven, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin with his wife of more than 50 years.

THE BIRTHRIGHT OF HOME

by Dick Altman

Attorneys general from 22 states sued President Trump in two federal district courts on Tuesday to block an executive order that refuses to recognize the U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants as citizens, the opening salvo in what promises to be a long legal battle over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. —The New York Times, January 21, 2025

Reports of Navajo people being detained in immigration sweeps sparks concern from tribal leaders: The DOJ argued in court that Indigenous people don’t have birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, so neither should children of noncitizens born in the US. —Arizona Mirror, January 24, 2025

I marvel,

over six months,

as crews,

of master

craftsmen,

mostly

undocumented,

give birth 

to my house,

overlooking

Rio Grande’s

valley.

 

I watch as raw hunks

of sandstone

bewitch

into new life

as Anasazi-style

walls.

Slabs

of the same rock

sculpted

into geometric

mosaics

of outdoor

walkways

and portals.

 

Amaze

as a Rumsford

fireplace,

known

for its high heat,

transforms

out of nothing

more than

firebrick,

cinder block,

and plaster,

into a work

of art,

reminding

of Spain’s

Middle Ages.

And so

the entire house

evolves

in that spirit.

 

I begin to wonder,

as the birthright

of countless

newborns,

of alien parents,

is in effect,

stripped

from the Constitution,

could

the government

call into question

the legality

of my house,

conceived

by undocumented

foreign labor,

to exist

on American soil?

 

I imagine

coming home

one day

to an empty lot,

not even a trace

of the concrete

underpinnings.

Posted on one

of many Aspen

I planted

over the years,

a document

claiming to be

an executive

order.

 

It reads:

“Your home,

propagated

by illegal

foreign labor,

has lost

its birthright

to shelter you.

The government

has no recourse

but to remove it

from your

property.

You’re welcome

to rebuild

with trades

of authentic

American

descent.”

 

What can I say,

as I look down

at Pueblos,

diminished

by untold eras, 

so they must

have seemed,

of America’s

dispossession?

What    can   I   say?

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Wingless Dreamer, Blueline, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 250 poems, published on four continents.

WHERE NO ONE COUNTS

by Lynn White

Source: The Guardian

When will we count the dead in Gaza?
Those buried in named graves we know, 
all the tens of thousands of them,
those buried in the rubble,
the disappeared 
with no one left to name them,
are still unknown
uncounted.

Then the other Disappeared,
prisoners of war
if it were a war,
but with only the rights
of terrorists
who have no rights at all
in this unequal conflict
that some call ‘war’.

And how can we count the injured in Gaza
when there are no hospitals left
and its people don’t count
so no one can count those numbers.
and perhaps no one will
in a country where people don’t count.

Now the starved and starving 
have joined them,
the bags of baby bones
the unaccounted numbers
of intentional famine
in Gaza where still
no one counts.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

THE DISAPPEARED

by B.Z. Niditch

New Pope Tied Up in Argentina's 'Dirty War' Debate
--AP,  March 14, 2013
Image: Jorge Bergoglio, Prepósito Provincial, en 1976. Image source: EstrellaDigital

                  for Pablo Neruda

Where are they
the children
the lost
those living in memory
in our solitude
those without strength
who march with us
in solidarity
who sing with us
toil with us
write on walls
all over the world with us
in prisons
with us
forever
clinging to a future
of the disappeared
and dispossessed
of the earth.


B.Z. Niditch is a poet, playwright, fiction writer and teacher. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art, The Literary Review, Denver Quarterly, Hawaii Review, Le Guepard (France), Kadmos (France), Prism International, Jejune (Czech Republic), Leopold Bloom (Budapest), Antioch Review, and Prairie Schooner.  He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.