THE BEST KITCHEN

by Matthew Murrey

has stains on the backsplash,

a bag of chips on the counter, 
a beer can from the night before, 
a toaster with one slot that works,
a light switch lightly smudged,
one plant too big for the sill,
a cabinet door that will not close,
a fruit bowl with a bruised banana,

a compost bin a bit too full,

chairs hung with coats and shirts,
half a bottle of Spanish wine, 
a clock on the wall running slow, 
a clock-radio shining red time,
a charger for your phone and mine,
a stove with two black iron pans,
a wall with photos and faded cards,
a couple of mismatched coffee cups,
a table with worn veneer where 
no one’s ever sat with diamonds
shining on a cross or shown  
such straight and stainless teeth 
in a smile so forced and white.

Matthew Murrey is the author of Bulletproof (Jacar Press, 2019) and the forthcoming collection, Little Joy (Cornerstone Press, 2026). Recent poems can be found in Roanoke Review, ballast, HAD, and elsewhere. He was a school librarian for 21 years, and lives in Urbana, IL with his partner. He can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Bluesky under the handle @mytwords.

CRT MEETS THE LITTLE ROCK NINE

by Margaret Rozga

Sarah Huckabee Sanders appears in the center

of my television screen. Her head and shoulders

in sharp focus, that camera angle fixed as if

to convey steadfastness. As if.

In the background a stretch of hazy space as if

she appears out of nowhere. On either side of her

jewel blue, likely furniture, maybe facing couches,

though placed at such a distance from each other

as if to constrain conversation. The camera angle

cuts off a complete view, so they appear flat

surfaces as if they were beds.

She continues to talk, about surviving cancer,

about leaving her children at Christmas to fly

in the dark to Afghanistan in the entourage

of he who she lets remain unnamed. As if.

She moves on.

Little Rock’s Central High School, her school,

she says. Art on the State Capitol grounds now

celebrates the Little Rock Nine, African American

students unwelcomed, demeaned, threatened,

abused when they integrated the school. As if

to erase sixty-six years, she claims in this way

civil rights history is with her, as if her sneer

at CRT were not erasure.

Her service in the administration of the

president she traveled with in the dark

another as if.

Editor’s note: A proposed bill that would have prohibited the use of public school funds to teach the 1619 Project curriculum has failed to make it out of an Arkansas House committee. —THV11, February 9, 2023

 

 

Margaret Rozga served as a voting rights volunteer in rural Alabama in 1965 and was a participant in Milwaukee’s 1967-68 fair housing marches. Her fifth book is Holding My Selves Together: New & Selected Poems (Cornerstone Press 2021).

ABEL ASKS HIS BROTHER WHAT CAME OVER HIM

by Bonnie Naradzay

CAIN ET ABEL (CAIN AND ABEL), 1960, an original color lithograph by Marc Chagall designed for and published by VERVE for the volume Dessins pour La Bible.

after Agnieszka Tworek

 

If I gave the best when I offered my sheep

while your harvest fell short of the mark,

why turn against me? There was still time–

 

Now my blood cries out from the ground

you have claimed as your own. You know

the land mine you rigged to me will explode.

 

Alas, the loaf of bread I’d held, this pool of blood.

How could you choose to bludgeon my cows,

to wreak your vengeance against them too?

 

We are brothers; yet you attacked my humanity,

dragged me with your arms. Let me feel the snow

fall across my face as I say goodbye to life.  

Bonnie Naradzay’s poems have appeared in AGNI, New Letters (Pushcart nomination), RHINO, Kenyon Review Online, Tampa Review, Florida Review Online, EPOCH, Pinch (Pushcart nomination), Potomac Review, and others. Her essay on friendship was published in 2020 in the anthology Deep Beauty. For many years she has convened poetry salons with homeless people and with residents of retirement communities in the Washington DC area.