OWNERSHIP

by W. Luther Jett

Three people were arrested by Florida Highway Patrol Sunday evening at the Pulse nightclub memorial site, after witnesses say they again attempted to chalk the nearby crosswalk in rainbow colors that were recently removed by the Florida Department of Transportation.—Central Florida Public Media, August 31, 2025. Photo by Nicole Darden Creston/Central Florida Public Media: Early Sunday afternoon, a sign reading "Defacing sidewalk prohibited" stands next to an area of sidewalk chalked with the phrase "You can't erase us." Florida Highway Patrol cars are seen in the parking lot across the street behind the building.

There was chalk

on the sidewalk and they—

the owners of the sidewalk

erased it.

                    Then it rained

while the sun shone—

We all saw the rainbow

before they put up walls

to hide it,

                    But you see

no-one really owned that sidewalk—

no more than anyone could own

the sky where the rainbow 

shimmered.

                    And if anyone

ever tells you they have touched

a rainbow—they are not

being truthful.

                    But I have held

chalk in my hand, chalk

all colors of—well, you know

how chalk dust rubs off—

how it gets

                    all over everything.

W. Luther Jett is a native of Montgomery County, Maryland and a retired special educator. His poetry has been published in numerous journals as well as several anthologies. He is the author of six poetry chapbooks. His full-length collection “Flying to America” was published by Broadstone Books in 2024, while his most recent chapbook “The Colour War” was released by Kelsay Books in 2024.

I IMAGINE FIRST LEAVING THE HOSPITAL

by Ying Wu

A wounded 6-year-old girl arrived at a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, on Sunday. Her mother wept outside the ambulance. Her father was at her side, covered in blood. The family was at a supermarket on the outskirts of the southeastern port city when Russian shelling started, according to the Associated Press. Now, a medical team was racing to save the young girl's life. "Take her out! Take her out! We can make it!" a hospital worker shouted. They placed her onto a gurney and wheeled her inside, where doctors and nurses fought to revive her. But she could not be saved. A doctor who was pumping oxygen into her looked into the camera of an Associated Press videojournalist in the room. "Show this to Putin," he said. "The eyes of this child, and crying doctors." Photo credit: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP —CNN, February 28, 2022

You step on the sidewalk.

 

Life breaks into pieces.

 

There are segments and thresholds.

 

Your child collapsed

when the missile exploded.

 

Your heel strikes the pavement.

 

Her body is there at the hospital, still—

but now, you’re outside.

 

Life crosses thresholds.

 

When your child was born,

you tasted forever.

 

But the sidewalk is sectioned.

Today, all the sections seem smaller.

 

Life is unknown.

It breaks into pieces—

 

and the space between heel strikes

can swallow you whole.

Ying Wu is a cognitive scientist at UC San Diego and executive editor of the Kids! San Diego Poetry Annual.  More examples of her work can be found online at Poetry & Art San Diego, Serving House Journal, Writers Resist, Poetry Pacific, and The New Verse News.  Her work is also featured in a permanent installation at the  San Diego Airport.  She leads research on insight, problem solving, and aesthetic experience and lives with her husband and daughter on a sailboat in the San Diego Bay. 

RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE

by Skaidrite Stelzer

Image source: Windsor Star

The old man smokes on the bus bench

at the Cherry Street Mission in Toledo, Ohio,

hunched over in permanent posture

while the radio blares out against him--

hate speech still allowed against anyone

who can’t make a living. 

The minimum wage shrunken over the years.

“See a coin and pick it up.” 

And the smacking of lips by observers

because he must drink.

Begging is outlawed now in most places,

though I see it discreetly hidden behind signs.

“Will work for food.”

I give her a dollar.

In the East Village, years ago,

a homeless man slept each night in the back

of our pick-up truck.

Others ran to clean our windshields

with dirty rags.

Vying for coins, jostling against each other:

the ballet of poverty.

“All that day you’ll have good luck.”

The majority rules,

making the rich even richer,

giving them more and more

as we hide the poor.

There are still neglected alleys.

Some freeze each winter but we don’t

see their names in the newspapers.

“See a coin and let it lay.”

A minimal wage for a minimal day

cannot buy a home or a room.

I see him scrounging the gutters for cigarette butts,

and when I look at him he gestures and yells.

“Out of his mind,” I have told myself.

Yet he earns his morning coffee.

He cleans the sidewalk of the Sufficient Grounds

coffee shop on Central Street.

No job, no money, but here’s his warm reward.

“What are you looking at?”

or a greeting; it varies.

Then he freezes one winter

like the rest.

Because he was somebody’s son,

there is a small obituary in The Blade.

“You’ll have bad luck all that day.”

The radio blares its message.

The rich need more money.

They must have more money.

One day they are bound to share.

“See a coin and pick it up.”

The frozen sidewalk has no eyes.

Skaidrite Stelzer is a poet and teacher living in Toledo Ohio.  A post-WWII refugee, she grew up in Michigan as a displaced person. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including the Georgetown Review, Eclipse, The Fourth River and The Baltimore Review. She teaches a variety of writing and literature courses at The University of Toledo.