5.59 MILLION CASES

Sarah E. Colona is the author of three poetry collections: Hibernaculum (Gold Wake Press, 2013), Thimbles (dancing girl press, 2012) and That Sister (dancing girl press, 2016). Recent poems appear in TheNewVerse.News.

IN WATERLOO

by Anne Myles

A Laredo man living in Iowa is critically ill with COVID-19, and thanks to a co-worker who refused to give up, he has reconnected with his family. "I just feel like I made a Facebook post, answered a few messages and calls, but it was everyone's efforts that came together. It was the small things that added up to one big thing and that was getting to find Jose's family." Zach Medhaug and Jose Ayala, a Laredo native, are among the dozens of Tyson employees who tested positive for COVID-19 after an alleged outbreak at their Waterloo, Iowa facility. —KGNS.tv, May 4, 2020

there’s a wild, forgotten greenbelt
wrapping the creeks for miles.
The trees are close and full of quiet;
they open to still mirror pools.
Breath, footsteps, birdsong,
deer-dash, otter-splash.
In May, a sea of Virginia bluebells,
light purplish spume above deep leaves,
floods the woods to the edge of sight.

In Waterloo we watch the waves
of a century’s migrations break:
Black, Mexican, Bosnian,
Burmese, Congolese, Micronesian.
City of refugees and of no refuge,
city of industries here and gone
where the remnant of Rath Packing
still looms downtown, a darkened shell.
Scarred city river-riven—east side,
west side—half-sutured by ten bridges,
the Cedar silted, shallow, shining.

In Waterloo four green goddesses
from atop a long-demolished courthouse
cling to the brick roof of River Plaza:
Agriculture, Science, Justice, Knowledge.
They pose, holding vague implements,
blank faces still, almost compassionate.
Their skin burns hot in prairie sun.

*

In Waterloo, at the far edge of town,
sprawls the Tyson plant. Neighbors
of many languages work side by side
in the chill, the clang, the cutting, the flesh,
the coughing, the fevers, the fear.
The line for testing coils around the lot;
over a thousand positive, they’re living
the consequences of all that makes us.

At Tyson, maintenance worker Zach
made friends with self-contained José.
Zach got the virus but was barely sick;
José’s ventilated and unresponsive.
Zach calls every day to talk to him,
play music. He posted José’s picture
and found his family back in Laredo.
They’re fighting for him together now
in Waterloo, not giving up faint hope.

The plant closed, but has reopened.
Outside, the typical scraggly rally.
We line up by the drive at shift-change,
waving, holding signs: Protect Workers.
Estamos Con Ustedes. Capitalism
is the Pandemic. Through car windows
masked faces glance back quickly,
difficult to read. A few hands lift.
We hear faint screaming: pigs or gears?
Grass flares, the sky throbs blue,
everything’s sliced hard against it.

*

And now a long-ago lover phones
to ask if I’m okay. She’s seen Waterloo
on Maddow, CNN. I say I’m fine,
safe as can be. I tell her walking
the trails here makes me happy.
I tell her I see my privilege;
I didn’t even know about the plant
twelve minutes from my house.
I try to explain, it’s like I married
a city instead of a person, so far
from where I started, my own diaspora,
but after decades I still don’t know it.
I say, it’s more than what you hear.
I say, our bluebells are so beautiful.

Anne Myles retired from the University of Northern Iowa, where she was an Associate Professor of English. She is working on an MFA in poetry at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in journals including North American Review, Friends Journal, Lavender Review, Gyroscope Review, Green Briar Review, and Whale Road Review.

UNMASKING PROCEDURES

by Randy Brown

with language borrowed and adapted from the U.S. Army “Soldier’s Manual of Common Tasks” (Skill Level 2)

In this DOD photo from 2012, “Bushmaster” soldiers receive refresher training on the proper wear of the field protective mask and the Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology protective garment, and gain confidence in their equipment by unmasking in a gas chamber at Fort Stewart, GA. Photo by Sgt. Mary Katzenberger

“Some reopening states are already claiming victory over the coronavirus. 

But the real consequences won’t be clear for weeks.” 

—The Atlantic, May 15, 2020

Note: Before conducting unmasking procedures,
make every effort to otherwise confirm
the absence of contamination.

Note: The senior person present selects one or two
soldiers to unmask.

Note: It is best to disarm the people selected
prior to ordering them to unmask.

1.
Conduct unmasking procedures in the shade.

2.
Direct selected individuals to each take a deep breath,
to break the seals of their masks (keeping their eyes open)
for 15 seconds, and to then again seal and clear their masks.

3.
Observe for 10 minutes.

4.
If no symptoms appear, direct the individuals
to unmask for 5 minutes
and to then again don, seal, and clear their masks.

5.
Observe for 10 minutes.

6.
If no symptoms appear, direct everyone to unmask.

7.
“All-clear.” Go back to work. “Re-open the economy.”
Shake hands. Get a haircut. Kiss.

8.
Observe for delayed symptoms.

Note: You might have to wait a couple of weeks
just to be sure.

Randy Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. A 20-year veteran with one overseas deployment, he subsequently authored the 2015 poetry collection Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire. He also co-edited the 2019 anthology Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War. As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about war poetry, civil-military discourse, and military-themed writing.

THE AMERICAN BOOK OF THE DEAD

XXIX.  May 14, 2020 85,884

by Harold Oberman

I want to sit here and breathe my own air;
My den is my paper panic attack bag—
     Rational fears.
Remind me next pandemic to ostrich cliche
Deep enough to fill my head with sand,
Deep enough to avoid CDC science,
So deep I’ll run the savanna
When I emerge, oblivious to predators.

Now they’re forcing us out,
Opening up.
A trial here, a meeting there,
Left behind if you don’t attend.
Just out of their eggs
Join the trail of tiny sea turtles
Trying to make it to the sea.


Harold Oberman is a poet and lawyer trying make a living, and live, in Charleston, S.C.

THE HUNGER

by Donna Katzin

Smithfield Foods, a US unit of China’s biggest pork company, has reopened its [Sioux Falls, South Dakota] processing plant after President Donald Trump ordered the US meatpacking industry to stay open despite an earlier coronavirus outbreak in such facilities across America. … Sioux Falls was thrust into the spotlight after becoming the largest coronavirus hotspot in the US, with 761 employees testing positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, according to local newspaper Argus Leader. … Some workers are refusing to return, with union leaders saying new measures put into place by companies, such as temperature checks and face masks, aren’t enough to guarantee individuals’ safety. —South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), May 7, 2020

First they kill the pigs
hanging upside down, squealing,
pleading for their lives.

Owners crave profits,
a president praise, power—
the consumers pork.

The assembly line
opens its maw—people packed    
elbow to elbow.

Workers in the web—                
trapped.  The spider virus spins,
waits for fresh meat.


Donna Katzin is the founding executive director of Shared Interest, a fund that mobilizes the human and financial resources of low-income communities of color in South and Southern Africa. A board member of Community Change in the U.S., and co-coordinator of Tipitapa Partners working in Nicaragua, she has written extensively about South Africa, community development and impact investing. Published in journals and sites including TheNewVerse.News and The Mom Egg, she is the author of With the Hands, a book of poems and photographs about post-apartheid South Africa’s process of giving birth to itself.

RETURNING TO THE SCENE

by Devon Balwit

Parents and students arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Sunday for the start of what officials are calling a “phased reopening” of the school. Credit David Santiago/Miami Herald, via Associated Press and The New York Times, February 25, 2018

You know you have to go back in,
that day, still sticky and unscabbed.
The border between the past and now is thin.

Few you know have stood where you have been.
Your journal entries wander, the writing crabs;
You know you have to go back in.

You stagger in the web—the whole thing spins—
talking heads with agendas—all the blab.
The border between the past and now is thin.

You hear the pop-pop-pop, the chilling din,
the screams of those now still, on slabs.
You know you have to go back in,

your soul benthic, nothing but a fin
above the waves, a periscope, camouflaged, drab.
The border between the past and now is thin.

You enter, jaw tight, leading with your chin,
by turns belligerent and undone, seeking hands to grab
You know you have to go back in,
though the border between the past and now is thin.

Devon Balwit is a writer/teacher from Portland, OR. Her poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Rattle, Redbird Weekly Reads, Rise-Up Review, Rat's Ass Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Mobius, What Rough Beast, and more.