HUSBAND DIVINING

by Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose

The murder of Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei (above) by her former partner has reignited calls for stronger action against femicide in Kenya. The 33-year-old Ugandan died days after being doused in petrol and set alight by her ex-boyfriend at her home in Trans Nzoia county in western Kenya. This is not an isolated incident. Kenya has one of the highest rates of violence against women in Africa. Media reports say that in January alone more than 10 women in the country were victims of femicide, defined by the UN as the killing of women because of their gender. —BBC, September 19, 2024

Nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women aged 15-49 years have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022, with married women at particular risk. The 2022 survey found that 41% of married women had faced violence. —Reuters, September 6, 2024

My grandmother recounts a game

she and her sisters played as girls. 

Candle in one hand, mirror in the other, 

they backwards-climbed dark stairs, careful 

not to misstep, not to stumble, not to become

fallen girls. At the landing, their fate revealed

in the flickering reflection one of two futures: 

the image of a husband

or that of the Reaper's.

 

Who will warn the girls of Death's trick,

how too often he wears the face of love?

Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose’s writing appears in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, Rattle, The New Verse News, and others. Author of two poetry chapbooks, Wild Things (Main Street Rag, 2021) and Imago, Dei (Rattle Chapbook Poetry Prize, 2022), she lives in Rochester, NY.

AS TIME GOES BY

by DeWitt Clinton

 "A sigh is just a sigh."    

—lyric by Herman Hupfeld

Some of us may have made it, or we at least pretend

We have made it, though all of us know we’re just

Kidding ourselves, but what else is there now that

A few of us can fill our lungs without stinging bats

That somehow did not find their way down into us.

We could also take the next hour (day) (week) (year)

To remember all those who have fallen, who did not

Know what in the world was inside of them, but it

Was inside them, and many who were nearby have

Also fallen down, some in the most hopeless places

Of the world, and as well, some in the most luxurious

Rooms not everyone could dream about, but still,

It might do us all some good to just remember what

None of us could ever imagine happening just like

That.

DeWitt Clinton taught English, Creative Writing, and World of Ideas courses for over 30 years at the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater. He is a student of Iyengar Yoga, and occasionally substitutes as a Zoom yoga instructor for seniors in The Village of Shorewood, Wisconsin. His four collections of poetry include The Conquistador Dog Texts, The Coyot. Inca Texts (New Rivers Press), At the End of the War (Kelsay Books, 2018), and By a Lake Near a Moon: Fishing with the Chinese Masters (Is A Rose Press, 2020). A fifth poetry collection has been accepted by Word Tech Communications.