COLORING

by Laura Lee Washburn

This drawing is part of an exhibition in Tucson, AZ of original watercolors and other artworks by kids whose families have fled to the U.S. seeking asylum. Casa Alitas operates a refugee shelter in a former Benedictine Monastery and offers art-making classes to traumatized kids released from detention.

“It’s not what you look at that matters,

  it’s what you see.”

—Henry David Thoreau

In the blue pool with jogging women
every morning this month I’ve seen
in distant tree yellow busted balloon.

I have ridden the packed dirt
on a brown three-speed bike
almost into long black snake.

I have been to the marsh
where green leaves reflect
from brown tannin waters.
I will go there again.

I have felt unease, eaten
too much sugar, sagged
at the loneliness of bad friendships.

I’ve helped light one hundred and forty candles
after dark, listened to testimony, heard
the names of six dead migrant children:

Darlyn, Jakelin, Felipe, Juanito, Wilmer, Carlos.
I’ve read the judicial arguments on soap
and sleep, toothpaste, blankets.

When the green leaves blow,
I watch through bamboo blinds,
live action but dim impressions of bright.

I have driven in blind white
sun on the turnpike’s upward curve
and made it south enough to see again.

I have driven twenty in storm
shocking white water rains
when the pea-sized summer hail
begins to tap.
I have not turned
around at the lake in the road.
 —I have judged and been judged—

Stupid people    this local woman
hosted a vigil because of “images” she saw.
How does she know [How does she know?]
the images are really detention centers?
    people who serve the DARK!
    scum invading      disease and violence
our president taking down the evil
Stop believing or search for the truth
everything is really a lie!

Laura Lee Washburn has taught how to tell creditable sources from biased sources, has never been held in a cell, and donates her time to a Southeast Kansas organization that helps women in poverty resolve crises.

DEATH TRIUMPHANT

by Howard Winn

Roger Ailes

But do not speak ill of the dead
was my mother’s advice when
I was young for as a believer
she felt that the lord’s judgment
would be fair and not need
disparaging human reminders
but those of us not so certain
there is any judgement except
the human one of a fair and honest
analysis is required in a civilized
world where true belief in being
“fair and balanced”  is merely a
hypocritical marketing slogan
rather than an honest statement of
principle and when the purveyor of
alternate facts and the misuser of
women passes from the scene as proper
victim of the bad blood of ruthless
kings honest reporting is a requirement
of an enlightened society not to fool
itself into laudatory obituaries unearned
when the evil one passes out of life
and truths of character must be disclosed.


Howard Winn's work, both short fiction and poetry has been published in Dalhousie Review, The Long Story, Galway Review, Antigonish Review, Chaffin Review, Evansville Review, 3288 Review, Straylight Literary Magazine, and Blueline.  His B. A. is from Vassar College. His M.A. is from the Stanford University Writing Program. His doctoral work was done at N.Y.U. He is Professor of English at SUNY.

THE LUMBERYARD

by Margaret S. Mullins

as i read the news, 

i think of the lumberyard

near the railroad tracks, three floors

of stacks of fresh-cut wood,

pine, cedar, black walnut, oak

of all sizes, shapes and smells

my dad and i drove right in, up the ramps

past long table saws and piles of sawdust,

to the workers standing there to give advice,

pull the planks and cut them to size

workers who could hold and look down a board, 

scrutinize it, proclaim it straight

or put it to the side as bowed, imperfect.

we need those mavens today 

to hold our political candidates up, squint,

and proclaim them true or bent

Margaret S. Mullins lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of Family Constellation (Finishing Line Press) and the editor of Manorborn: The Water Issue, (Abecedarian Press).