THE LAYING ON OF HANDS

by Kathie Giorgio

Trigger Warning: The following poem narrates scenes of the sexual abuse of a child by an adult.

I was always told that

God is Love.

From the church I no longer attend

From the catechism I’ve forgotten

From Buddhists, reiki masters, Wiccans,

psychics, evangelists, all whose words

have blended together into a quagmire.

But… God is Love, I was told.

My ninth grade science teacher wore a

pin on the lapel of his suit jacket.

Every day. In a public school.

It said, “PTL Anyway!”

I asked him what it meant, in a quiet moment

during study hall.

He said, “Praise The Lord Anyway!” and laughed.

Then he asked me if I was saved.

I was anything but.

He told me to follow him and we weaved through

the classroom of students and desks. Right in

front of them. They turned and watched us go.

He held my hand.

He took me to the storeroom at the back. We went

inside. He shut the door. Locked it. Turned off

the Light.

Then he folded my hands between his and he prayed.

For me. He prayed hard. His hands grew warm around mine.

I thought I felt the Holy Spirit.

And then

Well, and then

he put my hands on himself.

and then his hands on me.

He lifted me onto a table and laid me back.

As he pressed into me, he said,

“Always remember I love you. Always remember.”

God is Love. PTL Anyway!

And I so wanted Love, I didn’t fight back.

I was fourteen years old.

I have always remembered his declaration.

And I’ve always wondered about Right and Wrong.

And now

Well, and now

I think of all the stories I was told. All the stories I read

as I devoured the bible front to back, side to side, old and new.

Looking for God. Looking for Love.

The Good Samaritan, who helped the beaten man on the side of

the road, passed over by others.

The rich man who boasted of his wealth, giving to the church,

but only from his surplus

while a poor woman gave all she had.

Two pennies.

Let the little children come unto me.

Jesus wept.

And I shudder as I think of those who call themselves Christians

electing a man they say is of God, who would push the Samaritan

out of his way

and kick the beaten man over the border.

The man of God, who held up an upside-down bible with one hand

while grabbing women “by the pussy,” he said, with the other.

The man of God, who would save bits of tissue

tissue with no heart, no brain, no body,

no thoughts, no wants, no cares

and ignore the cries of children who are hungry.

Who are cold.

Who have no homes.

Who are looking for Love.

Who become pregnant by a man who wears a pin.

PTL Anyway!

And I hear again now, God is Love.

I think back to that ninth grade science teacher

who made me feel like I might be Loved

Whose PTL Anyway button pressed into my bare breast

as he pressed into me.

And I gasped with the hope of it.

I cried with the pain of it.

And then spent years, wondering about Right and Wrong.

PTL Anyway

But I feel the last nail driven in,

not the Holy Spirit.

I see who they call a man of God

and what they believe God’s Love would do.

There are no hands to deliver my spirit into.

I believe in Nietzsche.

God is Dead.

Kathie Giorgio is the author of eight novels, two story collections, an essay collection, and four poetry collections. A new poetry collection Let Me Tell You; Let Me Sing will be released in 2026. She’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in fiction and poetry and awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, the Silver Pen Award for Literary Excellence, the Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence, and the Eric Hoffer Award In Fiction. She is the director/founder of AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop LLC.

LIKUD LEGITIMIZATION

by Felicia Nimue Ackerman

with apologies to Emily Dickinson

An Israeli military investigation that has roiled the country with allegations of sexual abuse by its own ranks was set in motion by doctors who reported injuries to a Palestinian detainee that were so severe they required surgery, medical staffers familiar with the matter said… In a heated exchange in Israel’s parliament last week, one lawmaker asked another, “To insert a stick in a person’s rectum, is that legitimate?” “Yes,” replied Hanoch Milwidsky, a member of Likud. “If he is a Nukhba [member of Hamas’s elite fighting unit, which was involved in the Oct. 7 attacks] everything is legitimate to do to him. Everything.” —The Wall Street Journal, August  6, 2024

We'll maim our captured foes and show
No mercy or respect.
We'll soon be lords of all the land
With all rebellion wrecked.

We know we'll be condemned and yet
We forge ahead like kings
Triumphantly. What liberty
Unfettered vengeance brings!

Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a professor of philosophy at Brown University and has had over 300 poems in places including American Atheist, The American Scholar, Better Than Starbucks, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Down in the Dirt, The Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin, Free Inquiry, The Galway Review, Light Poetry Magazine, Lighten Up Online, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Options (Rhode Island's LGBTQ+ magazine), The Providence Journal, Scientific American, Sparks of Calliope, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Your Daily Poem. She has also had eight previous poems in The New Verse News.

FIFTY YEARS ACROSS

by Robert E. Petras




A shooting star sparks gold
Across the Ohio.
This night vein dissolves
Fireflies spark.
In the northwest clouds dry-hump heat lightning.
A storm may or may not come.
I palm a firefly and its pumping light.

The first cricket of summer chirps.

For every six bottle rockets
One is a dud,
Our seventh-grade gym teacher
Told us boys, lined up,
As he checked us,
Tight-lipped,
For groin pulls,
His hands in a V.
His eyes smiling

“Dud” I can still hear his grotto voice.

That’s the night Joey Geiger drowned.
That’s the first time I saw a shooting star
Shoot dry.

I open my palm
The firefly flits into the sequined night.
A second cricket chirps.

“Dud.”

Robert E. Petras is a resident of Toronto, Ohio and a graduate of WestLiberty University.  His poems and fiction have appeared in more than 250 publications across the globe.

HOLD HER DOWN, SHUT HER UP

by Kathleen A. Lawrence



She put her cold hand over my mouth,
she whispered hotly in my ear
a wet warning, “don’t talk about it.”
She ordered me to keep his secret,
their secrets become our secrets,
their sins we own, if we share what should
be buried, for country, and for tradition.
Silence is your patriotic virtue,
your civic duty to keep it to yourself.
Swallow the pain, spare us your burden.
“Shhh!” she blew with heavy, minty breath
in my face like a school librarian
who didn’t like her job, she glared
at me with the eyes of a water moccasin,
never blinking, she repeated her threat
to everything good I had ever known,
every future I had ever dreamed,
she swatted away my annoying truths,
she laughed uproariously at my viridity,
innocence, naivety, and guilelessness,
and pelted me with any other Ivy League
language she could spit and spatter
my way. To intimidate me, she put all
her boozy weight on top of me,
covering me like a wool blanket
at a rainy homecoming game,
she left me raw, itchy, confused
and unsure I’d ever get rid of the need
to scratch, to tell, to scream out
spilling her secrets, their secrets,
that kept them standing on marble,
speaking under alabaster columns,
holding conferences to tell their stories.
She held me down, like a pile-up
on the playground when you couldn’t see,
or breathe, or scream, but you knew
you knew them just the same. You
knew his face, like you knew
your own sweat, and stomach ache,
and migraine, and fear of the dark.
Leaning on me she excused herself,
her own participation, she spoke kindly
of her own parents, old like mine,
but obviously not as important.
She stood without empathy while keeping
me locked in another room upstairs,
over and over, blaming me and my sisters,
aunts, friends, little girls not yet able to speak,
and anyone who spoke, tried to speak.
But I was muffled, suffocating with her thick
deference to men. She gulped water
for fuel and fury and shouted of her anger.
She looked down with a whiff of pity
and smarminess, high with condescension,
drunk with power, unhinged with desire
to overpower me and feeling superior
from the artificial height of her leather pumps.
She wished I was still, quiet, subdued,
still asleep in my tower. But I am awake.
Locked in a bathroom, at a party,
dragged into a bush, cornered in a bar,
shoved into the backseat, and I scream
without sound. She covered her ears
to my words, her eyes to my struggling,
and uses her mouth instead to tell his lies
and to keep me the liar. She was not rumpled,
her manicured hands washed with rose hips.
She proudly marked the date with Sharpee
on her calendar with a gold star for her ability
to twist, conquer, silence, strip, and grope
the truth all without a wrinkle, smudge or tear
to her well-pressed suit. Like the cunning asp
slithering down the flag pole she has silenced me,
before the stars and stripes and Alexander
and Anita. She has humiliated me, and hissed
a reminder of what will happen to anyone else
who tries to get away with the truth.


Author’s Note: This piece was written as a reaction to the extensive news coverage of Senator Susan Collins delivering her lengthy, self-indulgent, speech to provide explication and some might say excuses for her decision to vote in support of Kavanaugh's acceptance to the Supreme Court. Her desperate rhetoric tried to explain the irony of her assertion that she, like many of her Republican colleagues thought Dr. Blasey Ford's testimony was wholly believable and 'compelling' however, she still didn't believe her testimony or find it reason enough to stall her approval. Many of the senators said they thought something must have happened to the 'nice lady' they just don't think it involved Kavanaugh and that she must be 'mixed up.' They were quick to add that while they were impressed with what seemed to be her 'truthful' testimony they think the whole situation is a case of mistaken identity. Some questioned her ability to recall all the details, and T**mp even mocked her about this. The way she's been treated is despicable and more classic, blaming the victim, or assaulting the assaulted. This poem tries to get at the idea that Collins was telling another woman to keep her mouth shut. In my opinion, she has joined the enablers. She tells Blasey Ford and millions of other women and girls and yes, some men and boys to keep quiet. Like the mother who calls her daughter a liar, for accusing her step-dad of assault and warns her that they could lose everything if she tells anyone, the message is clear. That no one will believe her. I tried to use the details of Dr. Ford's description of the assault she endured as well as some of the other details of other women giving testimony across the country this week interwoven with the assault on the truth.

Kathleen A. Lawrence was born in Rochester—home of the Garbage Plate, Kodachrome, and Cab Calloway. She has been an educator for over 35 years, teaching Communication, Popular Culture, and Gender Studies at SUNY Cortland. She started writing poetry two years ago and her favorite challenge is the spiraling abecedarian. She has had poems appear in Rattle online for Poets Respond®, Scryptic, Eye to the Telescope, Parody Magazine, and Inigo Online Magazine. She's had poems nominated for the Rhysling Award and twice for the "Best of the Net" award. Her poem "Just Rosie" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

CIRCUS

by Nicole Caruso Garcia

Simpler times by Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune, UT 

For Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, 27 September 2018


“We can't allow more time for new smears to damage Judge Kavanaugh, his family, his reputation, the reputation of the court, and of course, the reputation of the country…. it's time to end the circus.” —Senator Orrin Hatch (R) Utah


That’s what they heckle when a woman dares
To place her head inside the lion’s chops.           
(Drumroll…there are so few volunteers.)
You gird yourself and leap through flaming hoops

Of memory. As did Anita Hill,
You helmet-up and light the cannon’s fuse.
You swan dive, pray there’s water in the pail,
Become a Tattooed Lady inked in news.       

The men who pound the tent-stakes shake the high wire.
One-piece swimsuit, terrified, you list
Details: two guys, locked door, tunes loud, cries dire,
His hand upon your mouth. You don’t resist

But willingly subject yourself to groping
Questions. This appointment is for life.
Fifteen, you palmed no key but luck, escaping
His drunken weight as water filled the safe.

You’re poised, hang by your hair and strength of jaw.
The big cats roar. One sniffs he’ll never quit.
Your risk respects the gravity of law,
And cold hard truth is not so soft a net.

The crowd goes home. The clowns and beasts will slumber.
You still can hear two crude young men, their laughter.

Nicole Caruso Garcia is Assistant Poetry Editor of Able Muse and a Board member of Poetry by the Sea: A Global Conference. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in RHINO, Measure, PANK, Mezzo Cammin, Crab Orchard Review, Light, Modern Haiku, The Orchards, The Raintown Review, Antiphon, and elsewhere. She resides in Connecticut.

GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE ENJOYMENT

by Diane Elayne Dees

Click here to see original tweet.

So many things we could be doing—
watching movies, walking dogs,
playing with kids, lying on the beach,
having coffee with friends, playing tennis
on Saturday, relaxing at a jazz club.
But none of these can compare
with remembering, reliving, retelling:
the hug turned sinister, the doctored
drink, the sound of fabric being ripped,
the feel of bruising hands on shoulders,
the sound of laughter, the vomit-inducing
kiss, the heavy breathing, noxious sweat,
the brutal violation so powerful—
our neurology may never be the same.
The pleasure center of the female brain
lights up with every opportunity to beg
a powerful man to listen, to understand,
to maybe—one day—actually give a damn.

Diane Elayne Dees’s poems have been published in many journals and anthologies. Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that covers women’s professional tennis throughout the world.

LIFESTYLE OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS

by George Salamon

At the top of our society, abuse
Sports the faces of distinction,
Oozing professional achievement.
Practicing the habits of the highly successful,
Trained in academies for the
Acculturation to country and golf club.
Learned in the language of denial and deceit
By masters in think tanks and public relations.
They have what it takes to stay in
And rise to the top by the  laws of the jungle.
Women were assembly-line bodies,
Some disagreeable challenges to be
Overcome by booze or by force,
Until each great man chose his
Love goddess to keep his home.


George Salamon is following the Brett Kavanaugh saga from the heartland in St. Louis, MO.

THERE'S NEVER ONLY ONE

by Joan Mazza 

“Justice Blindsided: Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser comes forward” by Pia Guerra, TheNib, September 17th, 2018

A wife wants to believe her husband
when he swears, after he’s arrested,
he has never picked up a hooker before.
That the affair on a business trip was

nothing, didn’t have anything to do
with his love for his wife, his daughters.
The altar boy feels chosen by the priest,
special child, loved and petted, blessed

by God to be special. The only one.
He won’t tell the other children because
they might covet his blessings, but never
will be chosen. One assault, the one time

he groped a co-worker, demanded sex.
Just once. A moment of recklessness,
like the therapist who hugs a patient,
lies down for comfort on his leather couch.

Once, he tells the professional licensing
board, his wife, his adult children.
It happened once. The judge says,
It will never happen again.

Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has twice been a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Potomac Review, Slipstream, American Journal of Nursing, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, and The Nation.

WHEN GIRLS LEARN TO SWIM

by Marsha Owens

Fear of Drowning by Chelsea Emerson

                                 
                                    dedicated to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford


water so big

tucked half in
half out nothing
to stand on in-
hale if you dare
surrender

bare shoulders
taut lips blue
legs spread
into scissors
stiff and strong
turn limp

relax
they say



Marsha Owens writes to understand. Her poems and essays have appeared at TheNewVerse.News, thewildword, Rat’s Ass Review, Streetlight Magazine, the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and in the anthology Life in 10 among others. She lives in Richmond,VA, not far from the peaceful Chesapeake Bay. 

I BELIEVE HER EVERY WORD

by Angie Minkin

The first time I was six years old,

walking home from school
with my best friend.
Big boys pulled us into the bushes.
They pulled our panties down
and laughed.
We ran home ashamed,
too afraid to tell.

When Ann and I were nine,
an older kid in the neighborhood
convinced us to join him
on his porch swing.
I remember every touch -
creepy, scary, so wrong.
That time we told.
Buzz was sent away.
His mother screamed at us.
We moved soon after.

Fast forward a hundred slights,
a thousand catcalls,
a million looks behind me
when I dared to walk alone at night.

Stop at 25:  our safe Iowa town, so friendly -
no one ever locked the door.
indescribable chill of a stranger in my bedroom,
pulling the sheet off my naked body,
my boyfriend right next to me.
I was nightmare frozen, voice strangled
Dan lost his voice screaming as he chased the intruder.

I knew it was Ben, our landlord’s strange nephew.
it was dark—I couldn’t prove it.
The cops didn’t believe me.
Why was I on trial?
I check all doors carefully now.

Stop at 27:  eager to start my new career
teaching disturbed kids in East Palo Alto
The day before school started,
the assistant principal showed me the supply closet.
Yes, he got me in a clinch.
What a stupid cliché.
I forced my arms up
as he forced his tongue in my mouth.
I didn’t know his name then.
I’ll never forget it now.

Stop at 32:  working in a Mission District office
a vagrant licked the large window
masturbated while staring right at me.
I pressed charges.
The jury found reasonable doubt
after I was grilled on my past.

Now a woman past my prime,
the cloak of invisibility is comforting
But the bile in my throat
will never completely vanish.

Angie Minkin’s poems have been published in The Pangolin Review and Vistas & Byways. After years of working her left brain, she is happily rehabilitating my right brain with poetry, yoga, and dance.  Minkin lives in San Francisco’s blue bubble where she takes poetry workshops with mentors Diane Frank and Kathleen McClung.

THE PRIEST BELIEVES

by Joan Colby

Pope Francis with Cardinal McCarrick. File photo by Jonathan Newton-Pool/Getty Images.

“I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the church charged with responsibility for their protection and education,” [Pope] Francis said. “The failure of ecclesiastical authorities – bishops, religious superiors, priests and others – adequately to address these repellent crimes has rightly given rise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community. I myself share those sentiments.” —The Guardian, August 25, 2018

The host in the ciborium is transfigured

By words into Christ’s body,

The wine to blood.

He drinks ceremonially,

Offers the communicants

The chalice of redemption.

He believes in vocation,

In the holy calling

Of the spirit. He reads

His breviary, recites the

Apostles' Creed.

The sacristy where he dons

The vestments. The boys in lace

Surplices, their voices

Not yet deep as echoing wells.

Christ forgives all sins, even these.

He thinks of the thieves on the crosses.

The promise of paradise.

Of John the beloved disciple

And Leonardo who knew so well

How to paint that yearning.

“Suffer the little children,” Jesus said.

All who repent will be absolved

The priest thinks of Augustine

Who grappled with midnight angels

And prayed “Lord make me chaste,

But not yet.”

Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press), Dead Horses and Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press), and Properties of Matter (Aldrich Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.

ALTAR BOY

by Catherine Chandler




how I would shake
confessing venial sin

in that dark space
behind that sliding door

to Father
Father Son and Holy Ghost—

an apple pilfered
from the cellar bin

a cuss word slip-up
a neglected chore

a schoolyard scuffle or a lie 
a boast—

while he who consecrated
water   wine

who baptized babies
visited the sick

was fucking me           though they
would reassign

him      allegations never seemed
to stick

because whose word was sacred
his or mine

my lexicon too simple             tongue
and dick

the bishop kicked the reverend
upstairs

before he died            but sent
his thoughts and prayers

Catherine Chandler is the author of four collections of poetry, including Lines of Flight, shortlisted for the Poets' Prize, and The Frangible Hour, winner of the Richard Wilbur Award. Currently living in Saint-Lazare-de-Vaudreuil, Quebec, she was reared in Wilkes-Barre, PA, in the Diocese of Scranton.

SHE IS SIX

by Anuja Ghimire

“Separated from her mother by T***p’s zero-tolerance policy, the child was forced to sign a statement confirming thatshe understood it was her responsibility to stay away from her abuser.” The Nation, July 27, 2018


I hold my daughter

as she leaves 

me to become mine

Before she crawls on my skin

After colostrum

Before she knows white of moon

After she touches red of sari

Before she sleeps to fields of gold

After her hair comes down

Before one dent of dimple above her mouth

After wet umbrella of her eyelashes 

Before she loses first diamond in her jaw

After her raw gum

After babies leave Sandy Hook 

After children leave Marjorie Stoneman Douglas

After mothers leave borders but infants stay

Before I am her home

After she walks with my heart

to the door, backyard, seat beltless yellow bus

I hold my daughter 

after she always returns mine

A published author of two poetry books in Nepali as a young girl in Kathmandu, Anuja Ghimire moved to Dallas, Texas after finishing college and continued writing poetry. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she lives with her husband and two little girls near Dallas and works as an editor in the e-learning industry.

ME TOO WHO

by Rebecca Street

How can it be a little lass of nine

Should feel such guilt and fear the threat of hell?

Too young to name his cruelty a crime

Too damaged and coerced to ever tell.

Me too

Time’s up

So what

Shut up

Rosy cheeked girl who works to find a way

For her sweet child to have a better life

Could not afford to lose her job that day

Besides her mother’s cousin is his wife.

Me too

Time’s up

So what

Shut up

The bashful boy with pimples on his face

Could run like lightening so his coach did say

This dear one’s "yes sir" followed every race

With sleepless nights and silent tears by day.

Me too

Time’s up

So what

Shut up

Will justice for the few forever reign

While numerous nameless suffer such pain?

Rebecca Street is the author of You Can Help: A Guide for Family & Friends of Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Assault and the online program for survivors You Are Not Alone. She is also an actor and a poet. She has addressed both lay people and professionals at a wide variety of venues including the NY Office of Mental Health, the Fordham Graduate School of Social Work, and the University of CA., Santa Barbara. On April 4, she will be the keynote speaker for "Take Back The Night" at The Juilliard School.

DRIVEN THRU

by Deirdre Fagan

When you are 13 and poor,
even Taco Bell has an allure.

The Monte Carlo that held us

had a sheepskin bench seat.


Its soft cover like a fitted sheet
curving its corners like a cloud.

Seatbelts weren’t worn in 1983;

no need for slits to let safety peer in.



“Come closer and you can steer,” you said.


Nearly half my current size, no breasts,
thighs the width of my current calves—

I leaned full-bodied into the drive

eyes on the road, mouth watering,

drive-thru beckoning.

(What is there to taking a young girl?)

Deirdre Fagan is a widow, wife, and mother of two who has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in Amaryllis, Eunoia Review, and Poetry Breakfast, among others.  She is also the author of Critical Companion to Robert Frost and has published a number of critical essays. Fagan teaches literature and writing at Ferris State University where she is also the Coordinator of Creative Writing.  

WHY WE STAY SILENT

by Deborah Coy

"The woman said Mr. Lauer asked her to unbutton her blouse, which she did. She said the anchor then stepped out from behind his desk, pulled down her pants, bent her over a chair and had intercourse with her. At some point, she said, she passed out with her pants pulled halfway down. She woke up on the floor of his office, and Mr. Lauer had his assistant take her to a nurse. The woman told The Times that Mr. Lauer never made an advance toward her again and never mentioned what occurred in his office. She said she did not report the episode to NBC at the time because she believed she should have done more to stop Mr. Lauer. She left the network about a year later." —“NBC Receives at Least 2 New Complaints About Matt Lauer," The New York Times, November 29, 2017

I never told the school
how the boy groped me
in the art room.
They would have blamed it on
my sexy new sweater.

I never told the teacher
how the boy behind me
rubbed his foot on my ass
day after day.
I just scooted forward.

Who tells about the
innuendos on the street,
in the hallways?
“They all do it” and
you go on, a little smaller.

Who could you tell
when the voice
coming from the receiver
speaks the unmentionable?
You just block your phone.

Why tell on the
Octopus boy you are with
at the drive in who thinks the price
of your admission
is your body?

They wouldn’t believe
if I told of the veteran
who stood outside
my locked bathroom door
pounding his desire.

I never told my father
how the man we called Uncle
propositioned me because
I didn’t want to cause their ancient
friendship to end.

I never told because
I was wearing a miniskirt.
I never told because
of the skin I showed
with my low-cut blouse.

He never told how I
moved in too close for a hug
His body was so nice
and he knew
he was irresistible.

I never told
because I knew
it was my fault
I felt shamed.
After all, “boys will be boys.”

Deborah Coy is an editor with award-winning Beatlick Press (New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards). She has had multiple poems published in various small presses.

T***P VISITS GOLF CLUB FOR THIRD CONSECUTIVE WEEKEND

by JP Thelbert Bryant

Donald Trump has played golf every four days of his presidency.

—The Independent (UK) October 23, 2017

What’s out there, the solution to healthcare?
Secret plans to back down North Korea?
An apology letter about Russia’s interference?
Pussies to grab?

And do you ever feel guilty in those tight khakis
and white shirt, that children are hungry,
that gays are scared, that religion is taking over,
that women hurt?

Does it make you feel powerful to swing a club, put balls in holes,
tug on that baseball cap probably made in China?

I wonder these things as I work everyday, as I set aside money for sickness, as I monitor the gasoline I use, the food I buy.

I have no time for golf. Most of us have no time for golf.
We have to worry about feeding our children, fending off diseases,
nuclear bombs, conservative evangelicals dictating our lives,
our bodies, our minds.

But only pretty rich folks play with you.
And no one wants to think about sad things anyway.
It’s just some of us have to think about them. Everyday.

JP Thelbert Bryant is a poet and a writer of creative nonfiction. He is a graduate of the low residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College. He lives in the woods of Virginia where he burns incense, deer watches, and dreams of oceans.

RETURNING AMERICA TO GREATNESS: A TRUE STORY ABOUT GIRLS IN EARLY 1970s DETROIT

by Sue Reed Crouse

Image source: bOiNGbOiNG

One summer afternoon, L walked alone to the party store and bought a few ropes of Bubs Daddy Sour Apple gum. Past tiny houses, owned by the UAW dads, Mustangs on blocks in the garages; her world of city-wide curfews and cars. The Boys from the next block, armed with sticks, rounded the corner whipping leaves from low-hanging branches. They were old enemies from the Worm Wars, which had tapered off when the girls lost their fear of worms. At the height of The Wars, The Boys had ambushed them, tied them to the fence behind Mr. Taylor’s garage, and doused them with transmission fluid pumped from a tank he kept on hand. The girls hid their red, oily clothes from their mothers who would likely scold, boys will be boys. They were older now, yet she could still smell the oil, like scorched plastic, and taste it. Hey, The Boys mumbled, wanna see something cool? Toward the alley, behind the hardware, L followed. As she offered gum, Frank, grease under his fingernails, reached for the neck of her blue-flowered top and ripped, leaving her half naked in shadow with a scratch down her chest. L crouched against the cold wall of the hardware and worried about being grounded. There was M, back speckled with bruises which the girls saw when Miss G made her change into gym clothes. Attempting a smirk, M said that her boyfriend Ryan had gone all the way on her in the gravel behind the strip mall. Some of the girls were impressed because Ryan was in high school; others called M a slut. No one thought victim. There was C who was beautiful and didn’t care about The Boys. One day, she came to school with bruised arms and scratches on her face. A group of jocks, led by Chuck, knocked her off her high horse. They had held her down and scratched her face with open safety pins. Everyone said they did more, too, but C stopped talking that year and walked with her arms crossed and head down. T was playing the new record, Cherokee People for Larry when he shoved his hand down the front of her jeans. N was held down in the back of the school bus while The Boys took turns groping under her blouse. All the girls had their bra straps snapped. Are you a turtle? No? Then why do you snap! Back then, the girls knew that boys would be boys. Back then, the girls knew that The Boys needed to fuel their locker-room talk. Back then, girls learned that humiliation came with their gender, just like their monthly periods and sometimes, it seemed, more frequently. Back then, is where half of the electorate wishes to return. Back then, promises the president-elect, king of locker-room talk, sexual molester, voyeur, fan of violence, now on his third (and ever younger) beauty-queen wife, is where he will lead us.

Sue Reed Crouse is a 2011 graduate of the Foreword Program, a two-year poetry apprenticeship at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Much of her work is elegiac in nature, exploring themes of grief and loss after losing Laura, her 20 year-old daughter in 2008. Finding fresh ways to explore this universal theme through image-driven poetry helps her navigate the sorrow and, hopefully, help others who grieve. Crouse’s work appears in Verse Wisconsin, The Aurorean (Showcase Poet), The Talking Stick (First Prize, Honorable Mention), Grey Sparrow, Earth’s Daughters, Damselfly Press, Midway Journal, Sleet Magazine, Unhinged, Little Lantern Press and a chapbook entitled Gatherings: A Foreword Anthology. Her manuscript One Black Shoe was a finalist for the Backwaters Prize last year.

THE POPE'S PAGEANTRY

by Janet Leahy

SANTIAGO, Chile — Many watched in disbelief: There he was, Pope Francis, calling people in Osorno, a city in southern Chile, “dumb” for protesting against a bishop accused of being complicit in clerical sexual abuse. “The Osorno community is suffering because it’s dumb,” Pope Francis told a group of tourists on St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, because it “has let its head be filled with what politicians say, judging a bishop without any proof. . . . Don’t be led by the nose by the leftists who orchestrated all of this,” the pope said. —NY Times, October 7, 2015

As if he could watch the men
in church vestments and not remember
the first commandment of childhood
“Do Not Tell.”

As if seeing the men in long robes
would not open the dark pit of memory
the threat “Do Not Tell”
nightmares of abuse still haunt him.

As if he would not try to erase the memories
with a final forgetting
the haunting abuse never recedes
the therapist’s bridge difficult to travel.

A final forgetting looms
an escape from the commandment of childhood
the therapist’s footbridge difficult to travel
the watchman walks.


Janet Leahy lives in New Berlin, Wisconsin.  She works with several critique groups in the area and attends a poetry class facilitated by Dr. Margaret Rozga at UW Waukesha. Her poems are published in anthologies, journals, and appear at TheNewVerse.News and other on-line poetry sites.  She has two collections of poetry and is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.

THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

by Joan Mazza

Release of Scouts' files reveals decades of abuse
Reports cover more than 1,200 suspected molesters from the 1960s through 1985, naming doctors, lawyers, politicians and police officers. --LA Times, October 19, 2012

You said those words like a holy incantation
as you listed your son’s merit badges: rock
climbing, hiking, wildlife management. Food plan
for the homeless made him an Eagle Scout,
would count on college applications.

No need for a lecture meant to warn. Nights,
your head easy on the pillow, confidence
in your children’s safety, skills on camping trips.
(Sissy boys couldn’t join the Scouts.)

Leaders would turn them into men, would never
show them porn. What they learned was silence,
keeping secrets, loyalty. Rocks they had to swallow,
could not digest. You say, “What? What?”

Your own father held the same surety in safety
when he enlisted you to be an altar boy. Do you tell
yourself you should have earned awards for restraint,
forgiveness, understanding while you plotted

murder? Perversion files. For decades, they knew.
How much each of you learn. Nothing you could
have dreamed. Teachers, priests, scout leaders,
coaches took their power in muscled arms

and ran with it. Again, you dive into your Southern
Comfort. Here’s your award: Step up like a man
and take a white chip.


Joan Mazza has worked as a psychotherapist, writing coach, certified sex therapist, and medical microbiologist, has appeared on radio and TV as a dream specialist. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Perigee/Putnam). Her work has appeared in Kestrel, Stone’s Throw, Rattle, Writer's Digest, Playgirl, and Writer's Journal. She now writes poetry and does fabric art in rural central Virginia.