LIZ’S FIRST DAY

by Annie Cowell

In an overcast Scottish sky, a plane circles

like a call on hold, carrying a lady in waiting.

Below, at Balmoral, the self proclaimed 

booster rocket splashes out. 

It is unlikely we will see photos 

of him ploughing. A chorus of low thunder 

fills the short interval before the Queen 

offers her hand for the fifteenth time. 

The kiss is symbolic.

Instead, a small handshake suffices

to greet the latest Prime Minster. 

She bears the same moniker, but 

unlike Elizabeth, she uses the diminutive.

Liz. 

She promises to deliver a better future,

to be like Hera, protector of children.

Yet I wonder if that night, as she closed the door

on the first day of her government

whether she held her breath and listened

for noises in the street?

Or did she simply kiss her children 

good night 

and toddle off to bed?

Annie Cowell is a former teacher who lives by the sea in Cyprus with her husband and rescue dogs. She is widely published in Popshot Quarterly, The Milk House, Paddler Press, and more. Her debut chapbook Birth Mote(s) is now available.

BULLET-PROOF BACKPACK

by Robin Wright

First day of school, pens, pencils, notebooks,

scissors, crayons, lunch bag, corralled and ready,

along with fear, anxiety, worry.

 

Parents hopeful—not their children’s school, 

not their children’s lives on the next segment 

of the news with police interviews on who, how many. 

 

I watch a video of a mother teaching her child 

what to do in case a shooter appears at school, 

run to the corner, curl up behind his backpack. 

 

Do not let anyone tell him he doesn’t need 

this small wall of protection. She instructs him 

on what to say, NOTHING.

 

She tells him, be small, be quiet, run if you can. 

I will find you. Yes, I will find you,

wearing your Spiderman backpack.

Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in The New Verse News, One Art, As it Ought to Be, The Drabble, Bombfire Lit, Young Ravens Literary Review, Olney Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, Muddy River Poetry Review,Sanctuary, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was published by Finishing Line Press in October of 2020.