GATHERING FOR OUR CAVE SOON

by Jerrice J Baptiste

"Justice in the Trump Era" by Nick Anderson

Unfettered and Unaccountable: 

How Trump is Building a Violent, Shadowy Federal Police Force —ProPublica, October 18, 2025

Yesterday, the autumn wind almost blew 
me away. If I were thirty pounds lighter 
like I’ve always wanted, I would’ve joined 

leaves in the lake. I savor figs, dried plums,
mango slices we share together in the royal 
blue ceramic bowl, you gifted for my birthday

in April. And much time has passed and we need 
to gather dried berries and nuts like our friends 
the squirrels and rabbits. We will need to eat only 

one of each roasted almond, white cashew, walnut
at a time. Under the crumpled sapphire-colored 
blanket we will hide flat on our backs in the black 

onyx night, in the cave we will build. Silence, Silence 
and the goddess Artemis will protect us vulnerable 
women and children. We will quickly hush, hush
  
like kindergarteners at play with shadow puppets when 
adults enter a room. Whoever is searching won’t find 
us, when their heavy boots enter our cave, their hands 

shining light in each corner. Artemis will make us
invisible. Now the winds of autumn pick up speed. 
It is a brewing noise of citizens, and leaves. 

Can you hear what’s churning?  Do you feel 
the urgency of the people? The collective shouting, 
shouting, shouting, and not just a handful.  Let us 

gather, gather our portions soon and build our caves. 
Noise increases, increases loud firecrackers. Are you 
the poets who are not afraid of the bombs?

Jerrice J Baptiste is a poet, educator and facilitator of poetry for healing and self-expression. Her new book of prose poems is titled Coral in the Diaspora published by Abode Press (August 2024).  Her writing has been published and is forthcoming in The New Verse News, Artemis Journal, Urthona Buddhism and Art Magazine, The Dewdrop, Shambhala Times, The Yale Review, Wax Poetry & Art, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Mantis, Penumbra Literary & Art Journal, The Banyan Review, Kosmos Journal, Silver Birch Press, and many others. Her collaborative songwriting and poetry are featured on the Grammy-nominated album Many Hands Family Music for Haïti. 

BLACK ICE

by Lavinia Kumar

In Edison [NJ], thousands of immigrant workers toil in hundreds of warehouses, sorting millions of boxes arriving from nearby ports before being sent by trucks across the United States. But this summer has delivered something else. Immigration raids a few weeks apart at two warehouses have unsettled the daily rhythms of this busy corridor, where Amazon, FedEx and UPS have a large presence. The second raid happened Wednesday, [August 20] and resulted in the arrests of 29 workers, among the largest sweeps in the region since President Trump took office. Warehouses have been left short-staffed and behind schedule as detained workers were sent to immigration jails and others stopped showing up. —The New York Times, August 22, 2025

Oh, those winter mornings,

that fresh brisk air,

you go for a walk, spot a deer,

forget to look at the path,

and down you go—black ice.

Yes, black ice, its face invisible,

not like real ice, like white ice, 

in sweet slushies soothing a hot day,

or like crackling ice dropped

into an evening cocktail.

Yes, black ice, its every feature

disguised so you cannot not see danger.

 

Like tinted car windows to hide

the dark man in handcuffs taken by

Black ICE, this working man

taken from his family, from his work.

Black ICE seizing this man,

counting on a bonus award,

adding to the number 

for the White House 

Black ICE tally.

 

Black ICE in black masks,

Black ICE with tinted windows

Black ICE in unmarked vans

Black ICE with no warrants

Black ICE taking husbands,

mothers, fiancés, wives,

Black ICE taking dark men

who pay taxes, who love,

who have children

to Black ICE cages,

to who knows where

to crowded Black ICE jails.

 

And yes that young deer you saw

before you slipped on black ice

danced on its ballet hoofs

into bushes, into hiding,

hiding from you,

like a neighbor, like a friend,

hiding from Black ICE.

See Lavinia Kumar’s three food stories in Issue Five of Ruby Literary Press, The Monsoon Rain winning a 2024 Pushcart nomination.

MY OPEN LETTER TO ALL CHRISTIAN CLERGY FOR LENT

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS

                           for jill, preacher

the season of purple has returned

and you will preach

either giving up or taking on

and for forty days most who listen   will

but what will you say to those

whose lent has been years of forty days

who  so tired

have become shadows

yet those shadows are the ashes

crossed on ash wednesday foreheads . . .

instead of the proclamation

of giving up or taking on

perhaps you could speak for them—

the voiceless

those who have already taken on

perhaps you could speak up

for all the invisible

who must bear alone

their long and savage lent

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS is a former teacher and librarian whose writing appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Her first published book of poetry is entitled she: robed and wordless (Press 53, 2015) and her second, Writing the Stars (Press 53, 2024.) She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020.  Using five poems from her first book, James Lee III composed “Chavah’s Daughters Speak” first performed at 92Y in New York City.

THE EMPLOYED AND THE UN

by Judith Steele

Artist Mike Parr's head poked out of a stage for 36 hours at an exhibit in Hobart, Australia. —msn news, May 26, 2015.

We go fast
speed up
whiz past
whoosh
round we go
and here we come again
going past very fast
can’t stop must run
aspire higher
reach for the stars

If you can’t keep up
hide in a crack 
crawl in a log
Now you’re a myth
Now you’re a lie
Now you’re invisible
Must be a miracle.

Judith Steele lives in South Australia. Her poetry or prose has most recently been published in Gobshite Quarterly, (Portland, OR), in Mused, Bella Online Literary Review, Strange Poetry.com and The Merida Review.