POEM WITH REPEATED WORD

by Renée M. Schell    

                                    for Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles

 

What if we all practiced saying no?

 

What if every street corner

had a microphone

for the practice of saying no?

 

No, I won’t keep my mouth shut

No, I won’t choose between food and rent

No, I won’t use my body as an ATM to cross a border

 

The no’s would ring out, streaming

like ribbons up and over each other

weaving an ornate shawl

a handmade rebollo

a silk sari

a second-hand skirt

a torn scarf

 

They’d hear No in Amarillo

No in the pueblos of Mexico

No in Iowa,

No in the middle of nowhere,

No in County Kerry

No in the Sahara

No in Angola

No in Afghanistan

 

The microphones would pick

up the tiniest no,

the no of infants,

the no of eight-year-olds,

the no of a mother separated

from her child

at Fort Bliss.

 

How famous

do you have

to be 

for your no

to be

heard?

 

Renée M. Schell’s debut collection Overtones is forthcoming from Tourane Poetry Press. Her poetry appears in Catamaran Literary Reader, Literary Mama, Naugatuck River Review, and other journals. In 2015 she was lead editor for the anthology (AFTER)life: Poems and Stories of the Dead. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and teaches second grade in a diverse classroom in San Jose, CA. 

GOVERNMENT DIS-SERVICE ADMINISTRATION

by Margaret Rozga

Cartoon by Ann Telnaes, The Washington Post, November 20, 2020.

There once was a sycophant named Murphy

who claimed more than was her turf-y.

She refused to sign that the winner had won

and let the loser know his term was near done,

forsaking duty to go topsy turvy

Margaret Rozga’s latest work was to co-edit a newly released poetry anthology, Through This Door: Wisconsin in Poems.

INTOLERANCE AFTERNOON

by Gary Glauber

Starbucks Logo Mermaid Redesign by Cory Marino at Deviant Art

No one wanted to wait on the mermaid.

I couldn’t believe the rudeness.
She was out of her element,
waiting on this long line
nowhere near the water.
The barista acted like
she wasn’t even there.

But she was. Patiently waiting
her turn, eager to order.
She deserved her vanilla latte
as much as the next guy,
who happened to be me.

I had been behind her,
trying to pretend I didn’t
notice her resemblance
to the national chain’s logo:
same enchanting smile,
same long locks of hair.

Did they not hear
that uniquely dulcet tone,
the unmistakable foreign accent?

I stood there mute
when they passed her by
& turned to me instead.
I refused to be party
to this obvious act
of blatant prejudice.
What was the deal?
No shirt, no legs, no service?
No way.

Her scales glistened in
what I perceived was anger
or at least righteous rage.
It reminded me of that time
at the barbershop
when they refused service
to the giant who stopped in
for a trim.
They said it was
by appointment only,
& ignored the way
he barely fit into the chair.
He sat there for a time,
all awkward knees & elbows,
but these barbers were a stubborn lot.
He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders,
let out exasperated sigh, then got up.
Something in the look
told me he got this a lot.
“There’s small,
& then there’s petty,”
was what he said
before storming out.

When I finally opened my mouth
it was with fast solution at hand.
I spoke out the very order
she had been repeating
over & over again,
followed by my own.
I spoke slowly & the barista
repeated it back.
I gladly paid for hers,
& was happy to hand over
the green & white cup
a few minutes later,
not so much as an act
of flirtatious friendliness,
but more one of
true civil justice.

Gary Glauber is a poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist. His works have received multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. He champions the underdog to the melodic rhythms of obscure power pop. He has published two collections, Small Consolations (Aldrich Press) and Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), and a chapbook Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press).

PROSTHETICS AND AESTHETICS

by Janet Chalmers

“It’s a tremendous amount to put your body through, and it’s not like we’re going to get our breasts back,” said Rebecca Pine, 40, who decided against reconstruction surgery after a mastectomy. Credit Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times.

after “‘Going Flat’ After Breast Cancer,” by Roni Caryn Rabin 

in The New York Times, October 31 1, 2016.

Even before it was removed she knew she’d
have the tender cicatrix tattooed, would search

the gallery’s designs of ivy, snakes and dragons
intertwined until she found the single rose with

dagger thorns to shield her naked archer’s chest,
would use her grandmother’s antique crystal

serving bowl to display with warrior’s disdain

the powdered pink prothesis she would refuse.

J. Gerard Chalmers (Janet Chalmers) is a New York writer with an MFA from Columbia University. She has published poems, reviews and social commentary in many literary publications such as Bellevue Literary Review, Barrow Street, New Millennium Writings, Fogged Clarity, The Naugatuck River Review, Inkwell and the Kenyon Review (online). She was nominated for the 2014 anthology, Best New Poets and was a semi-finalist in the 2015 U. of Wisconsin Brittingham Prize and Felix Pollak Prize poetry series. She is currently writing a book of poetry called Scorpion Love about Picasso's mistress, the artist Dora Maar.