POEM FOR MY MIDDLE FINGER

by Susan Vespoli

with a nod to Catherine Pierce’s protest poems

“Fuck Authority” by Dan Colen, 2006, Oil on found painting

In protest I watch eight cops 

unload from their SUV, then strut

past me, a small granny with teal luggage 

waiting at the airport for a ride. 

In protest I say Beefcake. 

Fitted khaki pants and black polo 

shirts decaled with the word Police. 

Guns strapped to each man’s thigh 

with dark bands. In protest I say garter belts. 

In protest I say (in my head) I know 

what you did to my son. I saw the body 

cam. In protest, I glare. Puffed out chests 

and cocky swagger. In protest I say 

Mr. America patrol. I say rooster 

and remember the one that attacked 

my granddaughter at the peacock park. 

We thought it was a soft striped hen 

with a red mohawk until it high-kicked

its claws into her scalp. Blood spurted 

as she shrieked. In protest I say pull it in, 

dudes. Fold those football-player-sized egos

into cloth napkins at a memorial service. 

In protest I say humble. I say karma. I say

apologize. I want to scream, you don’t scare me, 

but remember my other kid saying, watch out, Mom. 

You’re gonna get yourself in trouble. In protest 

I say fuck Superman. I say fuck cultural authority. 

I bow down to sky, birds, dogs, poems, and peace.

Susan Vespoli lives in Phoenix, Arizona where she continues to write toward finding some sort of justice for her son, Adam Vespoli, who was shot and killed by police on March 12, 2022.

ROOSTER

by Richard Garcia

Hand carved & hand painted rooster by Avelino Perez from Oaxaca, Mexico

Ricardo the rooster
only crows at dawn
or at 3 a.m. or noon.
So you never know.
Tonight he might crow
especially loud at the full moon.
Really loud.

             Ricardo
              the rooster  lives on the border.
so his papers, passports, birth certificate
                         like his crowing skills
are quite in order.
 For first he climbs
                         the fence of Colossal
& from thence
                         greets El Sol in Spanish,
Then he bows & greets
                         the sun in English:
 Coo-coo-rico!
                         Cock-a-doddle-do!
Coo-coo-rico!
                         Cock-a-doddle-do!
 Ola, Señor Sol,
                                    How are you?


Richard Garcia is the author of The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press, The Chair from BOA, and Porridge from Press 53. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. He has won a Pushcart prize and has been in Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C.

BAD THINGS HAPPEN WHEN ROOSTERS CROW AND DANCE

by Marsha Owens

Image source: Democratic Underground

the slimy egg, salted and peppered,
slurs sideways on the plate as if to plead
hold on to sanity. Then I see the sign,
whoever killed my hen may you rot in hell,
which is on everyone’s mind these days,
hell
that is, and I had met Shakespeare before
all ruffled red and cock-sure, watched him
prance and dance around the yard, circle
the girls, cluck how he loves them like they love
him,
just like the Donald proclaims insidious love
for his chattel, then adds oh-by-the-way
they must be punished
should their eggs get sucked into some
venomous void, and I watched him mount
the stage with bullets in his skull where eyes
should be, where the soul of Putin, we’re told,
resides, and I sip from my coffee cup the rancid
taste of deceit, I drive by rough-hewn boards
splintered around the yard make-shift
marking the territory where the wall wasn’t built
to keep the hen in whose tiny brain
and chicken feet walked right on down
to Mexico into the hot oil, stewed
into oblivion, a delicacy of chicken
bones just a few miles up the road
from hell.

Marsha Owens lives and writes in Richmond, VA, celebrates her roots in the Chesapeake Bay area, and looks forward to tomorrow.