FROM THE EXECUTIONER OF KHET THI: A LETTER

by Indran Amirthanayagam

Myanmar poet Khet Thi, whose works declare resistance to the ruling junta, has died in detention and his body was returned with the organs removed, his family said. A spokesperson for the junta did not answer calls to request comment on the death of Khet Thi, who had penned the line “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know the revolution is in the heart.” His Facebook page said he was 45. —The Guardian, May 10, 2021

We have a body for you Mrs. Thi

but some organs are missing.

You understand that we had

to keep the heart for further study,

to better understand the root cause

of your husband's delusion,

and our apologies if the eyes

too seem askew. We dug into

ball and cornea, to unsplice

the vision fiber.This revolt must

be attacked by all available means,

including forensics, tear gas,

live bullets, home visits at night,

torture sessions in the nearest

police station. and we will be

ready for blowback from abroad,

the bloody poets gathering,

shouting words in their hearts.

Come on you chattering birds. Sing.

Indran Amirthanayagam writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. He has 19 poetry books, including The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, 2020) and Sur l'île nostalgique (L'Harmattan, 2020). In music, he recorded Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly, is a columnist for Haiti en Marche, won the Paterson Prize, and is a 2020 Foundation for the Contemporary Arts fellow.

A MEAT-PACKER'S SUPPLICATION

by Caprice Garvin

One African American worker at a Koch [meat processing] facility that had been targeted by Ice, spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity. He alleged that while Koch had recently begun taking workers’ temperatures before shifts, they had also withheld details of any workers who contracted the virus. He claimed the company was now handing out surgical masks, but had forced workers to use them over two or three shifts. “They ain’t offering nobody no disability, no unemployment, no time off,” the worker said. “I just keep my hands washed up, my face covered up, my whole body covered, and I pray to myself and hope I don’t catch it. The truth is there’s a chance that everybody in [here] will catch it.” —“‘We're modern slaves': How meat plant workers became the new frontline in Covid-19 war,” The Guardian, May 2, 2020

Never can I return to that unholy shape.
Hunched. Hands slipping beneath skin of lamb.
The corpse lies like wax in the ear.

Our hands are deep in the unhearing.
Fingers tread the crushed skull’s drowning place,
fingers sifting cartilage, organs snaking through.

We do not choose our own placement—tissue,
cells, molecules lain elbow to elbow on the conveyor belt.
The meat comes through our fingers.

These warehouse walls impersonate mountains.
They keep out the mountains and the voice calling down.
I would give my life for a vulture,

to see the arc of one tracing the arc of my eye,
to see that faintest movement at the edge.
To know there is something farther.

I know what it is to hear the last stream crackling ice.
A toe goes in. A knee.
A tongue soaked numb.

I am flexible as the neck of the vulture bending down.
I pick apart this body so that my son may know
his own body whole.

The skinned eyelids watch the blood drain
from floors as clean as obedience.
I will not feed my son my suicide.

Caprice Garvin, a native New Mexican, currently resides in New Jersey. She studied in the Writing Division at Columbia University, where she was awarded The Woolrich Award for Excellence in Writing, and in the Writing Division at Sarah Lawrence College where she earned an M.F.A. in fiction. Most recently her work appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry. 

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BISON

by Peg Quinn

“On Monday, May 9, 2016, President Obama signed into law the National Bison Legacy Act, which designates the bison as the official mammal of the United States. . . . Lobbying for the official mammal designation was a coalition of conservationists; ranchers, for whom bison are business; and tribal groups, such as the InterTribal Buffalo Council, which wants to ‘restore bison to Indian nations in a manner that is compatible with their spiritual and cultural beliefs and practices.’ . . . Before the mid-1800s, bison (also called buffalo) lived mostly in the Great Plains, but were also found throughout the continent. . . . The U.S. Army led a campaign to wipe out bison as a way to control [native] tribes. . . . Columbus Delano, secretary of the interior, wrote in 1873: ‘I would not seriously regret the total disappearance of the buffalo from our western plains, in its effect upon the Indians.’ —Elahe Izadi, The Washington Post, May 9, 2016.  Image: A colored-pencil drawing by Peg Quinn of a bison’s head.

A bison's bladder holds seven pounds,
about one gallon, enough
for indigenous people to use
for storing water, clothing,
or food when hunting

Horns sufficed as drinking cups,
or carrying hot ash from one fire
to start the next

Fur became blankets,
papoose and moccasin lining

Skin became saddles, or, when
stretched over low lying branches,
sewn to form teepees, clothing,
quivers, drum heads and ‘canvas’
for recording the year in pictures - their
‘winter count’ during freezing blizzards

String was pulled from sinew
then threaded into carved bone needles

This is no metaphor:
drumming sticks were made
by dropping a round rock into
a testicle then wrapping with tendons
to the end of a stick

Sinew binding teeth and hooves
made door rattles outside the teepee
for announcing a visitor

Bones were carved into knives,
scraping tools, and toys while
tails had second lives swatting flies

Eyes, brains, tongues and organs
were reserved as treats for tribal elders,
meat, berries and fish the daily diet
Snacks were made from intestines
packed with dried herbs and jerky

Though no one knows how they used the nose,
it’s no wonder they were worshipped

Peg Quinn grew up in a rural area outside Lincoln, Nebraska. As a child, she once got her head stuck between the tail and rear-end of a life-size buffalo statue in a public park. Today, she teaches art and paints theatrical sets in southern California, always wearing a bison ring made from an Indian head nickel and morns how they were slaughtered as a means of controlling indigenous people. Her Great-Grandmother was Sioux. 

DEATH OF MARIUS

by Skaidrite Stelzer

Image Source: CNN

In the Copenhagen zoo the children watch
with solemn faces, dressed
in their winter gear, blue hooded,
as Marius the giraffe is shot through his
head with a crushing bolt
and falls dead instantly.
Then the removal of the pelt as
the children's faces,
expressionless,
watch the autopsy and
the meat
appreciated by hungry lions.
The inside of a giraffe has many interlaced
organs. The children learn how they were put
together once.  It is a natural environment. Only
later will they learn the lightness of their own organs,
the human autopsy now vaguely familiar,
an implanted memory.


Skaidrite Stelzer lives, writes, and teaches in Toledo, Ohio.  Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals including Glass, Baltimore Review and Storm Cellar. 

CONTAMINATED

by Howard Winn

Image source: International Marine Salvage

 
Men in space suits are removing
lead and asbestos
from a house down our street.
Begun in the twenties,
this house remained from when innocence
prevailed as did cancer the crab,
moving sideways into the lungs
and other vital organs, both male and female,
from room paint, hot air ducts and shingles
covering innocent Cape Cod cottages,
moon walkers in airtight costumes
earn a healthy living from the fear of death,
this summer house is  now year round.
It holds an angular blonde mother
who runs along Shore Road with like wives,
a sinewy square-jawed father who drives
his hefty SUV to work and to his health club,
and coaches his vigorous son for little league fame
in the weekly mowed large side lawn
cared for by a landscape service that comes
in substantial truck and trailer to haul away
the unwanted grass.
across the street from our front windows.
In the mist of life, death by carcinogens lurks
in the up-scale décor and in the pipes of necessity.
Running, running, running,
they cannot run away.
Running, running, running,
they cannot run away.
Nes est certain, vita est non


Most recently Howard Winn had poems and fiction published in The Dalhousie Review, Descant (Canada), Cactus Heart, Main Street Rag, Caduceus, Burning Word,  Pennsylvania Literary Journal. Southern Humanities Review, Cutting Edgz and Borderlands. His B. A. is from Vassar College. His graduate degree is from the Writing Program at Stanford University. His doctoral work was done at New York University. He is a State University of New York faculty member.