OH BEAUTIFUL

by Chris Reed

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

For the country’s 250th birthday celebration

my sister texts a collage of photos of our mother

in her last years before dying at 100.

At first it seems a strange birthday message

for the nation, until I start looking at the photos.

In my mother’s face, her seated posture, 

often holding flowers or her cat on her lap,

I see the inevitable wear of years, time’s destruction,

a loss of elasticity and nimbleness, 

a loss of focus, purpose and endless energy,

a loss of fitting in to how things work and get done.

 

Yet in her eyes and smile in photo after photo,

I see acceptance and memories of past joys

and loves, her ocean sailings, mountain climbs, 

her shore walks, and dance among multitudes.

I see a hint of denial, pretending that her place

in the family of things is not coming to an end,

only her eyes betraying her knowledge 

that the journey has already started.

Her face tells me all this, but also tells me 

that amid her brokenness and joys and losses,

ever courageous, she is finding new love

and meaning in this, her season of endings.

 

With no flowers for you, let me still say,

Happy Birthday America.

Chris Reed cared for her mother in her last two years of life and found beauty in her mother's decline in health and purpose.  Finishing Line Press recently published a chapbook of Reed's poems about this time, Two Years and Two Months.

DOROTHY LOWAKUTUK

by Terri Kirby Erickson 

 

 

Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Northern Kenya was established to rescue and release orphaned and abandoned elephant calves. It was featured recently by the AP and on PBS.

 

 

They follow her or she follows them, the babies

of Reteti. Swinging their miniature trunks, they 

navigate the steep and dusty terrain not far from 

the elephant sanctuary—all the while listening 

for her voice and the voices of other keepers. 

These calves are like little children let loose 

in the playground, nowhere near ready to be

released in the wild. Most carry the memory 

of a mother’s disappearance, some brutally so. 

Others less dramatic. But a lost mother, how-

ever it occurs, is no small thing. When I found

my mother dying beneath her favorite azalea 

bush, I sank to my knees crying, Mommy, what 

happened? and I was no baby. Nothing prepares 

us for losing our mothers, the loneliness of grief. 

But Dorothy Lowakutuk learned the language 

of elephants. She knows which of them is Sera,

Long’uro, or Sarara—how they play and walk 

and sleep. She teaches them to roll in the dust to 

keep their skin cool, find plants that are safe to

eat. Humble, yet as regal as a queen, Dorothy 

Lowakutuk’s face is radiant as the African sun, 

this kind woman and all the rest at Reteti who

talk softly, feed and sing to the children of lost 

mothers. Blessed be—blessed be their names.

 

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of eight full-length collections of poetry, including The Light that Follows Us Home (Autumn, 2026, Press 53). Her work has been widely published and has won numerous awards, including the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize, International Book Award for Poetry, and the Tennessee Williams Poetry Prize. She lives in North Carolina, USA.

A TRUE EPIDEMIC

by Diane Elayne Dees

 

"In the City of Shreveport, we have a true epidemic of domestic violence….”
—Shreveport City Council Member Grayson Boucher

 

When I was a little girl, my parents took me
on a rare outing downtown; my mother’s
face and neck were free of bruises,
so we could roam freely among other families.
As we crossed a busy Shreveport street,
a man shoved a woman against a car
and began hitting her with his fists.
No one intervened. Finally, a policeman arrived,
and pulled the man off the woman. “Listen,”
he advised: “Take her home and do that.”

At that moment, I thought I understood
everything about my mother’s bruises.
It would be years before I understood
that—even if a  policeman had taken
my father to jail—he would not have stayed
there. And even if he had, there was nowhere
for my mother to go. And even if there were,
the slow-dripping acid of trauma had already
eaten away her soul, and left burn marks
where there had once been beauty and creativity.

The killer in Shreveport had “dark thoughts,”
and now, eight children are dead. His wife
thought that she had escaped, but now she lies
in a hospital, with critical wounds. How do you
end an epidemic that courses through decades,
neighborhoods, churches, and income brackets,
and whose victims—if they live—become carriers
of trauma, fear, rage, and assorted deadly germs
that damage brains and flatten the souls of the unborn?

Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbooks, Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books), The Last Time I Saw You (Finishing Line Press), The Wild Parrots of Marigny (Querencia Press), and I Can't Recall Exactly When I Died (Kelsay Books). Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world. Her author blog is Diane Elayne Dees: Poet and Writer-at-Large.

A SPERM WHALE BIRTH

by Pepper Trail

 

 

 

Unimaginable, but imagine—birth into water, but needing air

Your head emerging last, sheltered until the last moment within your mother

Then, the shock of ocean—the world—and the powerlessness

Your flukes folded, useless, body limp, the surface unreachable

 

But you are not alone, and your mother is not alone

There is a community, her old friends, and your aunties and sisters

They are there, all around, excited, anxious to welcome, to help

Their bursts of clicks your first hearing, this code meaning “belonging”

 

They balance you on their great heads, lift you into the light, and you breathe

Between their gentle bodies they squeeze you, and you breathe

They keep away the circling dolphins, and you breathe

They keep watch for sharks, and you breathe

 

At last your body stiffens, balances in the water

You take your first milk, wise with a baby’s knowledge

Your aunties drift apart, exclaiming as they go

At your mother’s side, you slowly swim, and begin to be a whale

 

Based on detailed observations of a sperm whale birth, as reported in Nature and Science.

Listen to an NPR report.

 

 

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry. 

 

LEARNING HER ABCs

by Madlynn Haber

A tiny girl, with sweet face, gentle features,

soft voice, recites her ABCs for me.

She learned them from an older, bolder cousin. 

The speech is hard for my aged ears to decipher. 

Mingled languages, English, Spanish, baby talk, 

an imitation of the elder cousin’s careful pronunciation. 

She smiles shyly, appreciating my attentive listening 

without noticing my lack of comprehension.

Her mother was not deported today.

 

The mother showed up at the immigration center 

with the little girl in her arms. The fearful father 

stayed home. Bail money collected by well-meaning 

neighbors filled her pockets, just in case.

Sighs of relief as she returns with a four-month reprieve. 

The little one will know her letters and some numbers, 

in English, the language of the only home 

she's ever known, by the time she escorts her mother 

to the immigration office again in July.

Madlynn Haber is the author of Seasons of Sorrow and Joy (Metaphysical Fox Press, 2025). She lives in a cohousing community in Northampton, Massachusetts.Her writing has been published in many literary journals and anthologies including, Eunoia Review, Months to Years, Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Sheila-Na-Gig and The Metaworker Literary Magazine.

MISSING

by Patricia M. Phillips-Batoma

For the Guthrie family

In the Sonoran desert 
a mother is missing 
and the world wonders 
who could do this. 
Her children on TV 
try to break through. 
The star sibling, 
with the made-for-TV smile, 
brighter than any screen, 
vast as a continent, 
breaks down. She sniffles. 
Her mouth twists 
in her small mortal face 
where crisscrossed lines 
read like a map 
of all Earth’s sorrows. 
So many know this disaster. 
They sit on the same couch 
as these three siblings, 
with family near 
and ordinary days out of reach. 
We are not built to endure 
the snatching away of goodness and light, 
of normal human people. 


Author's note: The lines in italics echo the first video put out by Savannah Guthrie and her two siblings.

Patricia Phillips-Batoma is a writer and teacher who lives in Illinois. She has published poems in Skylight 47, An Capall Dorcha, The New Verse News, Off Course, Plants and Poetry and Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis.

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.

GRACE IN MINNEAPOLIS IN THE AGE OF ICE

by Barbara Draper

It’s afternoon as I sit looking out the library window— 

across the street a testy wind snaps a line-up of flags— 

 

the first for Ukraine, the next to remember the MIAs and POWs, 

the next to bring them home, and finally, an American flag.

 

Earlier this morning as I stood on a corner, a whistle 

around my neck, on look-out for ICE,

 

an Hispanic mom, holding her daughter’s hand, 

walking her safely to school, 

 

passes by, touches my sleeve 

and thanks me. 

 

Me of the privileged, white variety, 

grandmotherly, sure in my safety. 

 

Tears welled up— 

for her or for me? 

 

The unfairness, the enigma, the grace she gave 

with her great big heart. She touching me.

Barbara Draper’s poems have been published in Poetry East, Potomac Review, Rust + Moth and Sow’s Ear. She has authored one book of poems, Sometimes a Door. She lives in the Minneapolis area and is active in climate change work as well as running after three grandchildren.

THE SOUND OF THE WELL

by Shirin Jabalameli

Beneath a cracked and ancient dome,

the wind slips through fissures,

circling the hull of a stranded ship.

Coffee grows cold upon the table,

and the Sufi, in quiet prayer,

speaks to the blackness of a crow.

From the dragon’s mouth

a rope of light leaps forth

onto masks that melt, one by one,

their cracking faces ringing

like a forgotten church bell

through the air of poverty’s hell.

The city,

a fractured mirror,

sees its own face in a thousand shattered pieces

and screams.

The broken tick-tock of a clock

scratches the latch of time’s doors,

and from a silent well

the voice of a child rises,

still remembering the name of their mother.

The crow spreads its wings,

and the wind carries the scent of stale bread.

The Sufi stirs the coffee in a whirlpool

and with a sip drinks the world anew.

Shirin Jabalameli is a multifaceted Iranian artist, poet, painter, photographer, and writer. She has authored books including Crows Rarely Laugh, Apranik, and 101 Moments. Her latest work, an illustrated poetry collection titled 25 Fell from the Frame was recently published. Her poems have appeared in international journals such as Braided Way Magazine (USA), The Lake (UK), and The New Verse News (USA).

Shirin’s poem in its original Persian follows:

صدای چاه

زیر گنبدی ترک‌خورده

باد از شکاف‌ها عبور می‌کند

و بر شانه‌ی کشتی به گل‌نشسته می‌چرخد.

قهوه روی میز سرد شده است

و صوفی در سکوت

با سیاهی یک کلاغ مناجات می‌کند.

از دهان اژدها

ریسمان نور می‌جهد

بر ماسک‌هایی که یکی‌یکی

ذوب می‌شوند،

و صدای ترک‌خوردن چهره‌ها

چون ناقوس کلیسای فراموش‌شده

در هوای جهنم می‌پیچد.

شهر،

چون آینه‌ای ترک‌خورده،

چهره‌اش را در هزار پاره‌ی مخدوش می‌بیند

و جیغ می‌کشد.

تیک‌تاکِ از کارافتاده‌ی ساعت

کلون درهای زمان را می‌خراشد

و در چاهی خاموش،

صدای کودکی می‌پیچد

که هنوز نام مادرش را از یاد نبرده است.

کلاغ بال‌هایش را باز می‌کند

و باد بوی نمِ نانِ کهنه را می‌برد.

صوفی قهوه را در گرداب می‌چرخاند

و با جرعه‌ای جهان را دوباره می‌نوشد.

LIGHTNING

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

Trying to make sense of lightning is about more

than science. How long should students lower

their heads, consult their books, run computer

simulations and not look outside.

 

By the time you read this message a bolt will

have struck in dozens of locations, though

you might not have registered the flash. The smell

of ozone in your nose, learning to count for thunder.

Did you know lightning can be silent. An owl.

 

Friction travels from cloud to cloud. It’s over my head

I’ve heard

told. There’s a space in the great codes for interpellations,

gnostic meanings, hidden from the rabble: debates about what’s

in plain view

 

Can someone without sight see a storm.

What if they also cannot hear.   

Lightning can be a figment of the mind:

logos. But if we cannot make observations

what is science.

 

Every one of us has dreams. There were heat storms

over my crib. I couldn’t talk but in my gut I knew some

thing was wrong.

 

Let the infants cry. For the betterment of science.

Watch them, how they respond. From the blur comes

a woman’s features. Mother? But not the storm.

 

They cry because they know she’s an electric force,

violence with the texture of milk—

Jeremy Nathan Marks knows that his own instinct to try to enucleate the problem is a self-deception. But he's stubborn. He lives and writes (stubbornly) in Canada.