THE ICE STORM

by Susan Cossette

Leave this city, black ice.

These roads are unusually treacherous.

 

Snow, thaw, then refreeze--

a polar vortex roars in from Manitoba.

 

This four-wheel drive offers

little protection from icy roads.

 

One bad tap of the brakes

will send me crashing into 

a graffiti-adorned delivery truck

which states simply,

ICE out.

 

Or worse, 

into the protestors on the corner 

of Penn Avenue and 17^th Street 

in north Minneapolis

on this foggy subzero morning.

 

Whistles shriek in feverish shrill 

in crazy unison with car horns,

and phone cameras rolling, 

recording truth suppressed.

 

Ten black SUVs skulk 

on each side of the pitted street,

curbs piled high with sooty snow.

 

Polished obsidian flanks of fear--

ICE has rolled in.

 

Unmarked men stalk door to door

in a Latino neighborhood near,

faces shrouded, shadowy brute army.

 

The salt has not made the roads safe.

The protests change nothing.

The passport I keep 

on my front seat means nothing.

 

We do not leave our homes

because we are too cold, 

too afraid, or both.

 

We are cyphers, faces pressed 

against cold glass, 

hands zipped tied, hog tied—

frozen blood stains dirty ice.

 

I pray for the brother and sister

I almost wish were my children

after two years of seeing them holding hands

each morning at the bus stop on 17th,

backpacks with smiling stuffed toys 

clipped to the straps.

 

For their mother watching 

her babies climb into the yellow vessel,

and the door close tightly behind.

She scurries up frozen sidewalks 

to the food pantry.

 

Jesus, get me to the next corner,

keep my small clenched hands visible 

on this cold steering wheel.

Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, she is a recipient of the University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, The New Verse News, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Fast Fallen Women (Woodhall Press), Tuesdays at Curley’s (Yuganta Press), and After the Equinox.

AGAINST PURITY

by Judy Kronenfeld

My father slipped out of Nazi Germany 

in history’s hidden pocket, but the sister

and her family he never talked about stepped 

over the crack between everyday

and juggernaut (deportiert 1942, verschollen
in Auschwitz, or für tot erklart

in the same hell). 

Briefly paused in Recife

on the way to Ascension Island,

courtesy of the U.S. Army, 1944, my father took in

the faces in gradations of brown,

and said, according to family legend:

“We should all intermarry

until we blend.” As if, to fuse 

the blacks and whites, the us

and them tense in his newly beloved

America would move us towards

a gene-pool Esperanto, one flavor, nothing

sticking out, nothing to hoist

a flag, or cross or crescent on.

Even a star. 

        

He dipped his pinky

in the Passover wine to spill the ten drops 

for the plagues God visited on the Egyptians,

and with his post-retirement

congregation, bowed to praise

the Creator “who has set us apart.”

But never held himself

apart or wished a plague

on anyone. In his decline, when congregants

visited the dementia wing, he could still mumble

the Hebrew prayers he’d learned by rote

as a kid, though almost everything 

in his life—including Paula, Mendel, 

Hermann and Charlotte—

was by then verschollen.

But someone is always saying

We’ve fallen from our ancient  purity—
take back our country!

        

Someone like Anders Breivik, self-trained in pure

ruthlessness, whose bomb and bullets 

shattered the charm enclosing open Norway. 

I remember  all of Oslo—like a village—

celebrating light in the dark 

of the autumnal equinox, 

gathering for the River Walk, 

the mud-slick banks of the Akerselva glowing

with candles and torches, spangles flickering

off the silver foil the school kids used 

to decorate the trees, all families—adopted African

or Asian children, Muslim mothers

in their sculpted head-scarves—

safe as houses.

And someone else, afraid to disagree,

will wave a torn and faded

flag, so long suppressed,

and holler yes!         

        

Like the proud father who bows

to God when his wife-and-kids-abandoning son 

fighting for Islamic State in Syria

is killed, who celebrates that son’s

martyr’s wedding (though the mother says

‘it’s a funeral for me’) in a great tent 

draped with black. 

        

It makes me want 

all things maculate, muddied

mottled, pocked, all things

tainted,     

stained,

blotchy, motley,

mongrel, splotched,

hybrid, scrambled,

half-caste —

If that’s what it takes

to defy Ein Volk, Ein Reich
Ein Führer, the wished-for

Caliphate, Judea and Samaria,

Trump’s Muslim- and Latino-

free America.         

Judy Kronenfeld’s most recent books of poetry are Shimmer (WordTech Editions, 2012) and the second edition of Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths (Antrim House, 2012), winner of the 2007 Litchfield Review Poetry Book Prize. Her fourth full collection, Bird Flying through the Banquet, will be published by FutureCycle Press in the spring of 2017. Her poems have appeared widely in  print and online journals including American Poetry Journal, Calyx, Cider Press Review, Cimarron Review, Connotation Press, DMQ Review, Hiram Poetry Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Louisville Review, Natural Bridge, The Pedestal, Portland Review, Sequestrum, Spoon River Poetry Review, Stirring, and Valparaiso Review, and in more than twenty anthologies. She is Lecturer Emerita, Dept. of Creative Writing, University of California, Riverside, and Associate Editor of the online journal, Poemeleon.

THE DOG RUNS ON

by Laura McHale Holland

Alejandro Nieto was killed by police in the neighbourhood where he spent his whole life. Did he die because a few white newcomers saw him as a menacing outsider? —The Guardian, March 21, 2016. Image source: Justice for Alex Nieto.

the dog runs on
and my daughter’s friend
is gone

Alex carries a burrito
up Bernal Hill
a neighborhood jewel
his lifelong home

a husky, off leash, lunges, yips, growls
in pursuit of Alex’s food
the dog’s owner doesn’t notice, doesn’t care
he’s looking at a female jogger’s ass

Alex leaps onto a park bench
the dog lunges, yips, growls
Alex stands, fends off the fangs
the dog’s owner doesn’t notice, doesn’t care
he’s looking at a young jogger’s ass
the dog lunges, yips, growls
Alex pulls out a taser, points it at the beast
the owner notices, reins in his dog,
sees he’s facing a taser, not a gun

he trots off with his dog, calls a friend
says he wishes California were like Florida
he could stand his ground against
a brown-skinned, no good gangbanger
who dares to threaten his lovely dog
he could stand his ground against
a Latino dressed in red 49ers jacket
black 49ers cap, black pants, sunglasses
he could dispense with Alex
who is unnerved by a dog lunging
for a burrito on Bernal Hill
a neighborhood jewel
Alex’s lifelong home

Alex sits down, bites into his burrito
some passersby see a normal guy, a familiar face
others see a menace with gun tucked at his waist
one calls 911, police drive up the hill
Alex finishes his meal, stands up
a security guard with licensed taser tucked away
Alex, ready for work, ambles a familiar route
police move in
Alex ambles a familiar route, police move in
he does not know his new neighbors
ensconced in remodeled homes
believe he’s a threat, police move in
Alex does not know his neighbors, ensconced
see him as a threat, police move in

What happens next?
officers involved say they told Alex to stop
but he crouched, weapon in hand
they feared for their lives
he crouched, weapon in hand

people who loved Alex say
he would never do that
he was a role model, a youth advocate
a community volunteer
he studied criminal justice
he knew better than most
how to respond to police

an eyewitness says Alex did not
crouch, did not pull out his taser
an eyewitness says Alex did not
pull out his taser, did not crouch
an eyewitness says Alex’s hands
were in his pockets

my daughter says Alex, her friend
from Horace Mann middle school,
was a sweetheart, a peacemaker, always
a connector, a sweetheart always
in all ways

bullets blast and soar
through Alex’s lifetime home
knock the young man down
shatter his jaw and teeth
rip through leg bones
blast and shatter his lifetime
bullets pound the young man
already down without motion
bullets mangle his brain
his blood colors the ground
and the bullets stop at last
his blood pools on the ground

Alex, Buddhist, peace activist,
junior college graduate
aspiring probation officer
Alex, campaign volunteer
community event organizer
Alex deeply loved and loving deeply
breathes his last on Bernal Hill, his home
Alex, a neighborhood jewel
loving deeply and deeply loved
breathes his last on Bernal Hill
and the bullets stop at last

When San Francisco’s finest enter the home
where Alex dreamed the dreams of childhood
where he grew from beloved boy to beloved man
they do not tell his parents their son is dead
they interrogate, look for gang affiliations
they do not tell his parents their son is dead
they interrogate, look for drug connections
proof that Alex was unstable, unreliable, violent
San Francisco’s finest fail to mention that Alex is dead
until his parents demand answers
with no warrant, San Francisco’s finest steal Alex’s car
they find no drug connections, no gang affiliations
they smear Alex’s memory, look for drug connections
gang affiliations, look for dirt and find none

police brass, city brass exonerate the officers
the grieving parents seek justice, restitution in a civil trial
the dog’s owner testifies, jokes about the jogger’s ass
Alex’s grieving parents look on
the officers laugh in the hallway
the grieving parents look on
a jury clears the laughing officers
the grieving parents look on
the dog’s owner doesn’t notice, doesn’t care

the dog runs on and on
my daughter’s friend
is gone

Author’s Note: This poem is related to several police shootings being protested in San Francisco. It is specifically about Alex Nieto, who was gunned down in 2014. On May 9, people in the Justice for Alex Nieto group were among the protesters seeking the resignation of police chief Greg Suhr. Last week, after another in a spate of officer-involved killings, Suhr was asked to resign, and he did.

Author, editor and storyteller Laura McHale Holland has published the anthology Sisters Born, Sisters Found: A Diversity of Voices on Sisterhood; The Ice Cream Vendor's Song, a flash fiction collection; and Reversible Skirt, a memoir. You can sign up at her site to receive an excerpt from Resilient Ruin, her new memoir in progress.

NO. 2

by Sean J. Mahoney

Jose Gutierrez

You first surfaced 22 years ago, rising
From the concrete with much promise.
You are casualty number two,
From Camp Pendleton.

Perhaps you were the one who gave
Us directions to building 73A: down the road
A bit, past the cannon, turn right. We may
Have never met. You may never have asked
Me about the principals of electromagnetics
Though you wanted to know. You may
Have been jogging with your unit to song,
sweat turning your desert t-shirt
Into an apron of badges.

You could have been in one of the copters,
Practicing, too busy to see that we had located
The communications line the brass
Were so worried about. Maybe you were
In the mess when we opened up the sewers
To determine where all the shit went.

Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez -
You were combat casualty number two,
Killed in southern Iraq March 21, 2003,
Pieces of you will remain there.
The Republic of the Soil will erode
And wipe your thumb out over time,
Change the chemical properties,
And release your minerals.

I can imagine that as a tick feeding from you
While you had pulse and pause, I discerned
A lapse in your genetic rouge,
Chips in the clay of your latino
Beauty. And, knowing your end
Approached and no council could deter
That fact, I crept away and tucked into
Your wife’s folds. I would whisper
Into her skin the things I knew of you
As I fed: that you would have fathered
Two more, read Dianetics, won
16 grand in the lottery and lost most
Of it at the track. And that this
Would have come to pass once
You had broken your leg playing football
With the boys on a Saturday, Budweiser
Abounding. You would have slowed down,
Grown a bit around the middle,
Begun smoking cigars and paying
For manicures at the salon with
The wicked sexy Vietnamese lady.
I would issue into your wife anything
And everything about angels, guts
And glory of country for I am a bellcap
Of sorrow and brave people need
To stand up and tell the truth. But she
Does not hear that you will die soon,
And accidentally.

Jose Gutierrez - if I could have set
A 5-foot by 5-foot grid around you,
Marched up and down
The backfill of your life
With a conductivity meter
Through painted barrios and brush
Loaded with ticks I may have found
The locale your composition caved
And registered void.
Or, had I lit you up
With an 8 megahertz current,
I could have measured your growth
And your linear trend from
Your first surface expression
As breathing conduit to copper child
To weathered teenager to rusty
Soldier, to where your line vanished,
Ended suddenly
And without explanation.

That is what happens.
I could have told you where,
Not that it would have made
A difference. I still do not know
Why.

This is what happened.
Jose Gutierrez  - you first surfaced
22 years ago,
Rising from the concrete
With much promise.


Sean J. Mahoney lives with his wife, her parents, an Uglydoll, and three dogs in Santa Ana, CA. He works in geophysics after studying literature and poetry in school. His first published  piece appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of MiPOesias.