TERRITORIAL DISPUTES

by Karen Olshansky

Marin spotted owl population under threat from newcomers. Proposed government strategy seeks to eliminate invasive barred owls. —Marin Independent Journal,  October 10, 2023.

The Barred Owl with its stoic demeanor chest puffed feathers
perched in wooded river bottoms or swamps poked with trees
sit staunchly like the dead wood where they perch
guarding, watching with still eyes, baritone song filling the forest

who cooks for you who cooks for you who cooks for you

sometimes silent in search for food and prey 
the Spotted Owl an innocent target
brother eating sister attacks, the cruelty of nature
birds mirror the disregard for one of their species

uncaring, mean, violent,
nature wins over evolution
that calls for reason, kindness, compassion
instead of the entrapments of violence 

a world driven by base instincts
of brains riven with ripping out each other’s
identity, that fear replacement,
smoke obscuring humanity.

Karen Olshansky lives in Marin County, California with her husband and a well fed Koi named Pickle Face. Dismayed by our world gone mad, she writes poetry in order to maintain her sanity. Her work has appeared in The Literary Nest, Tuck magazine, The News Verse News, and the anthologies: Lingering in the Margins, Unsealing Our Secrets, and Unspoken.

AFFORDABLE CARE

by Megan Merchant 

Cartoon by Pat Bagley 

I’m sorry America, please have a seat.
By popular vote we are going to remove

your third rib
without a plan for replacement.

You should pray,
or at least mutter something biblical near a statue.

We are going to snipe the surgeon and replace
him with the homeless man

who is stationed by the automatic door
with his styrofoam cup, tipped with whiskey.

He has seen so many injured and sick welcomed
under the florescent lights that he must

be deft at holding a knife, understand how
to point the sharp edge away.

This is a beautiful approach, believe me,
do not underestimate periphery experience,

it is so close to precision, you won’t even know.

Megan Merchant is mostly forthcoming. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections: Gravel Ghosts (Glass Lyre Press, 2016 Book of the Year), The Dark’s Humming (2015 Lyrebird Prize, Glass Lyre Press, forthcoming 2017), four chapbooks, and a children’s book with Philomel Books.