FRIDA KAHLO AS A KEYCHAIN

by Terri Kirby Erickson

My Frida Kahlo keychain, a gift from a longtime
friend in Lubbock, is made of felt, hand-embroidered 
with the brightest threads. Her pink floral headdress 
 
is rainbow-shaped, her eyebrows like a minimalist 
painting of a bird in flight—one solid line, double-
arched, meeting in the center of her forehead. With
 
eyes forever closed, this keychain Frida is always 
smiling. She never had polio or walked with a limp. 
Her spine and pelvis were never broken, her uterus 
 
never pierced by an iron bar. In fact, she has no body, 
only a lime-green tassel where her neck should be. 
To her, Diego is just a name, not a faithless husband, 
 
no one to whom her tortured letters were addressed. 
Hanging from a set of keys, she cannot know the fate 
of brown-skinned immigrants gathered like herds 
 
of cattle, handcuffed and transported, the families who 
may not find each other again, the crying babies, their 
stolen mothers. Keychain Frida has no arms to paint 
 
their pain in vibrant colors—a small portrait of herself 
in the corner of the canvas, boldly staring, her blood-
red heart dangling between her breasts like a pendant.

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven full-length collections of award-winning poetry. Her work has appeared in “American Life in Poetry,” Latin American Literary Review, ONE ART, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Rattle, The SUN, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and many other literary journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies. Among her numerous awards are the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, International Book Award for Poetry, and the Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize. She lives in North Carolina, USA.

DANCING AT THE CRIPPLED CHILDREN'S BALL

at Sam Houston Coliseum in the 1950's and 1960's

by Suzanne Morris

The Southwest Citizen (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 3, No. 43, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 2, 1950

The lawyer [Aaron Siri] helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death. —The New York Times, December 15, 2024

I am staring at the bald pate of

Mr. Siri as he imparts his wisdom

to the U.S. Congress

when my years of dancing at the

annual Crippled Children’s Ball

come back to mind with a

sting of irony that

I didn’t see back then, though

the children being honored surely did

when crossing the floor

with hitching steps in

steel braces and leather stocks

in the somersaulting spotlights,

names broadcast

from high above

a Shriner in bejeweled fez

dispensing handshakes as

the audience cheered.

One by one, the survivors came,

withered limbs cocooned in

full-length gowns or creased dress pants

as each of us waited in the wings

in stage make-up

sequined bodice and revealing tu-tu:

Dancers dancing at the

Crippled Children’s Ball.

Metal rotating on hinges

propelled brave steps

into the post-polio world

of watching others demonstrate

dainty pirouettes and

fouettés en pointe

then bid farewell with

curtsies and pixie smiles

from the arena stage floor.

Dancers dancing at the

Crippled Children’s Ball.

The brief insult of a

needle prick

saved us from all

they had endured

and later still,

even less an event:

one sugar cube

drenched in tu-tu pink.

Dancers dancing at the

Crippled Children’s Ball.

Suzanne Morris resides in Cherokee County, Texas, where she writes poetry, reads a lot, and tries, with little success, to make sense of the news. 

AUGUST

by Juditha Dowd

This evening it occurs to me I ought to call my mom and dad
because it’s been a while. And for a moment they are not
gone some fifteen and thirty-six years, but still at the house 
where I left them, the first of their children to depart.
It’s summer and steamy and all the windows are open wide.
She’s on the porch working the Sunday crossword.
He’s out back picking tomatoes or wielding some tool—
lawnmower, drill, or paint brush. For what they may lack 
in talents or skill they substitute perseverance.  
Today I took tomatoes from the garden we extended again
in this post-pandemic summer, the leaves already mottled 
with a virus that will kill the plant but doesn’t harm us. 
Here too it’s hot and humid, like that year my twin brothers 
caught polio, from swimming at a public pool some said.
The same August our younger brother almost drowned 
in the deep end and our country joined the Korean war,
though my father was too old to fight in that one. 
If only my phone could find them tonight, I’d assure them 
I’ll get another booster. Or bemoan the endless shootings,
the forest fires, the latest wars… Or instead I might say 
It’s 100° and I’m making a tomato sandwich. 
Maybe leave it at that. They’d know what I mean.
 
 
Juditha Dowd’s fifth book of poetry, Audubon’s Sparrow, is a lyric biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon (Rose Metal Press). She was a 2022 finalist for the Adrienne Rich Award and has contributed poems to Beloit Poetry Journal, Cider Press Review, Florida Review, Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere.

VACCINE REACTIONS

by Claudia Gary

On April 18, 1955, 8-year-old Ann Hill of Tallahassee, Fla. received one of the first Salk polio vaccine shots. Credit AP via NPR.

Seeing a needle, I slid off the chair,

ran down a hallway to the waiting room,

then circled it until the harried nurse

and my mother corralled me. No amount

of coaxing to be good, no bribes of candy,

no warnings about polio could stop

my tears that day. The rest I don’t remember. 

Autonomy, “freedom,” was everything

to a three-year-old. Last weekend I saw

a needle and shed tears of gratitude.

Claudia Gary teaches workshops on Villanelle, Sonnet, Natural Meter, Poetry vs. Trauma, and more through writer.org (currently via teleconference). Author of Humor Me (2006) and of chapbooks including Genetic Revisionism (2019) and Bikini Buyer’s Remorse (2015), she is also a health science writer, visual artist, and composer of art songs and chamber music. Follow @claudiagary.

KIDNAPPING GODOT

by Richard Fox

Cartoon by Tom Gauld.

"People are bloody ignorant apes." 

—Estragon in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

1. Polio

Mom makes pancakes for breakfast on a Wednesday.

Gives me a gorilla hug at the bus stop.

At school, we hang up coats, march to the All-Purpose Room.

The nurse smiles, watches us down cups of clear liquid. 

The principal anoints each forehead with a gold star. 

2. Cancer

Mothers quiz me about Gardasil* for daughters. 

I endure HPV*-caused tumors, 

so pegged their expert.

My plea, heed pediatricians.

Inoculate girls and boys by age eleven.

They choose to delay, let their kids ripen. 

Maybe by sixteen, the children can decide.

3. Ba’al

Carthage

the field of stones 

chiseled memorials

first born sons

throats slit

* Gardasil is a vaccine that prevents the HPV virus from causing oral and cervical cancer. Anti-vaxxers promote false research that a side effect is autism. Because HPV is spread sexually (not necessarily via intercourse), they claim the vaccine is tacit approval for teenage sex.

When not writing about rock ’n roll or youthful transgressions, Richard Fox focuses on cancer from the patient’s point of view drawing on hope, humor, and unforeseen gifts. He is the author of five poetry collections and the winner of the 2017 Frank O’Hara Prize.

HERO

by Peg Quinn

Image source: 1stdibs

 

Veterans Day Weekend 2014

easing back
as morphine
soothes his system
he remembers
the Great Depression

walking to school
through snow
without a coat
in shoes
that didn’t match
he drifts

to Guadalcanal
his tank under fire
the slow motion of
body parts in the water
the gunner’s beheading
crimes never mentioned
until his wife’s death
sixty years later

somewhere
his box of medals

now his mind turns bedside
his infant son
an iron lung
polio
the good man
he would become

wife’s smile
swirls the room

he smiles back
remembering
fields and farms from
their Piper Cub
tandem seating
their carnival of friends
ferris wheels
of laughter

his good fortune

the landscape of his
life a clean horizon

this night,
straining through pain
between tabs of morphine
he finds the faded
Navajo rug bought
from the back of a truck
their honeymoon stop
near Santa Fe
the light in the eyes
of his spunky bride
that night
under stars

he tosses the rug
to the garage floor

drops down hard

steadies the gun
metal to mouth

as he remembers

paying full price
without bargaining


Peg Quinn is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, mural and theatrical set painter, award winning quilter and art specialists at a private school in Santa Barbara, California.