WHAT THIS WHITE MOTHER TELLS HER BLACK CHILD

by Rachel Mallalieu

Whatever you do, check
your tail lights before you leave
the neighborhood. And while
we’re on the subject of driving,
I know your dad doesn’t always
use his blinkers, but it’s imperative
that you signal when changing lanes.
When you are inevitably

Pulled over, please keep
both hands on the wheel while
you quietly wait. Calmly announce
what you’re doing before you
move. I know you’ve seen me
reach for my license and registration,
but you should not do this without
warning. Make sure to look him
in the eye, and say sir.
At all costs, you must

Show respect. If you are in a car
with friends and officers approach,
I forbid you to run—even if you are afraid.
In general, it’s better
not to hold your cell phone.
Someone may mistake it
for a gun. And speaking of

Guns, I’m afraid the Second Amendment
might not apply to you. Yes, your grandfather
keeps them, but I think it’s safer for you
to stay away. Sometimes, I think

It would be easier if you never
left home. Inside, you can
wear a hoodie without causing
undue fear. But when you’re home, please
double check to make sure the door
is not ajar. Lock it so no one
enters by mistake. Even then,

If in the middle of the night
you hear someone whispering
outside your window, while a flashlight
flickers on the glass, do not go
near the window. Please, whatever
you do, stay away from the window.
Instead, drop to the floor,
crawl under the bed, call
me and tell me you’re okay.

Rachel Mallalieu is an Emergency Physician and mother of five. She writes poetry in her spare time. Her work has been featured in TheNewVerse.News, Blood and Thunder, and is upcoming in Haunted Waters Press.

HIDING IN A HOODIE

by Howard Winn

Hiding in a hoodie
like some small-time drug
dealer the Big Pharmy CEO
is marched to his booking
between two large deputies
as he proclaims his innocence
of the Ponzi scam he used
while running his nearly
bankrupt hedge fund with
no auditor and not much
cash left in the bank as
he funneled dough from his
company on the edge of
going under to hide his
duplicitous inability to
find the right investments
for his fund even with
illegal Insider info it seems
from the evidence noted
that this most eligible bachelor
of the year is perhaps the
phony loser of the year
and the major drug dealer
of our double-dealing time


Howard Winn’s fiction and poetry, has been published recently by such journals as Dalhousie Review, Taj Mahal Review (India), Galway Review (Ireland), Antigonish Review. He has been recommended for the Pushcart Poetry Award three times.  His B. A. is from Vassar College. He has an M.A. in Creative Writing from Stanford University   His doctoral work was done at N. Y. U. He has been a social worker in California and currently is a faculty member of SUNY as Professor of English.

VIKING APOCALYPSE

by Jennifer Lemming

The Gjallerhorn. Image source: Swide

I waited for the Viking apocalypse,
nursing a cup of hot chocolate,
like it was mead, thick with brewing,
reading Beowulf, looking at the moon set
in the western sky, wondering if the young boy
with the hoodie pulled up and dark circles under
his eyes, walking past my window

on this milder day, after a winter that feels
like it was eleven years long, is the wolf son
of Loki, escaped and battling for the last hundred
days. I’m thinking I could go outside and pull
bark from the tree, scratch on it some

Viking graffiti that says, “kiss me,” the scent of
alpine clover in the air,
and return into my lair, take up my mead/hot chocolate
burrow under the blankets again,
waiting for the world to fall into the sea,
waiting to dream of Valhalla, laid in state
on my bed, a proper Viking funeral.


Jennifer Lemming’s works have appeared in Tipton Poetry Review, Earth’s Daughters, Ichabod’s Sketchbook, Out Rider Press Anthologies, Foothills Press Anthology, Rufous Press, The Idiom Magazine, and The Poetry Garden. Jennifer was a Finalist in February 2011 for the “Poems for Mr. Lincoln” contest sponsored by Brick Street Poetry. In the San Francisco based poetry contest, The Dancing Poetry Festival, she won first place for her poetry in 2004 and third place in 2009. In 2012 her latest chapbook The Clever Level was published by Celestial Panther Press.

FASHION

by Victor D. Infante

                                          For Geraldo Rivera

When I was 17
I bought a leather jacket
at a thrift store, affixed
a pair of handcuffs
to the shoulder,
and adorned the lapel
with pins from punk bands:
The Specials, The Clash,
Stiff Little Fingers.

I bought a tattered black trenchcoat
for $5 on a school trip to New York,
got home and paid a Russian woman
15 bucks to repair the tears. Didn’t mind
when the seams unraveled. Wore jeans
which were more hole than fabric.
Scribbled them with anarchy symbols,
clipped bits with safety pins.

My hair was neglect –
neither short nor long,
sometimes spiked,
briefly blue, except
that its natural darkness
resisted tinting. The dye
faded quickly. My hair
remained midnight.

When I was 17,
I couldn’t surf
but loved the ocean.
My skin was golden brown.

Strangers assumed
I was Mexican. Once
a cop half-jokingly
asked me for an ID
when I sold him Doritos
at the 7-11 where I worked.
I had a driver’s license, although
I didn’t drive. I had a history
of walking because I didn’t
own a car. I had a history
of violence, although I’m sure
the cop couldn’t tell that from
my identification, just shrugged
and returned it, and I never
spoke of it again, until now.

When I was 17, I had a problem
with authority. Had a mouth on me
but I wasn’t stupid.
Didn’t bait cops. In fact,
had sworn off fighting entirely.
Each punch seemed to wear
the seams of whatever it was
that held me together.
I was fraying like worn jeans
and a cheap trenchcoat.
I held myself  together
with pins.

When I bumped the crazy boy
while running to class, I took
his hits and kicks, until a teacher
pulled him off me; She had seen
the attack, and saw I didn’t fight,
so I didn’t get in trouble. The lesson:
Don’t fight. Don’t run.

When a jock took some childhood trauma
out on me by the lockers, I ate each fist until,
bored, he wandered away.
The urge to reply pulsed in my fists.
My legs ached with the urge to run.
I counted the cost
of what I was trying to prove.

I’m a long way from 17, now.
Haven’t faced a fight in years. Don’t
know what I’d do if I did. I’m paunchy,
my skin has paled from indoor living. Still
wear leather and trenchoats, wear
my hair long, but cops don’t look at me
funny anymore. Too old, too white.

I read the news about the boy in Florida
with pockets full of Skittles and iced tea;
who wore a hoodie walking home in the rain;
how the TV bobble-head says the hoodie
is as responsible as the gun,
as if damaged children never jump
those they perceive as weaker.

I wonder what, at 17, I would have done
if I’d faced what that boy did,
what words would have burbled
from that teenage cauldron
of combustion and leather.

I’m afraid I know the answer.
I would not fight. I would not run.

“Go ahead, coward — shoot me.
What the fuck are you afraid of?”


Victor D. Infante is the editor in chief of Radius: Poetry From the Center to the Edge , and the author of City of Insomnia, from Write Bloody Publishing.