IN THE TIME OF COVID: 52 MORE THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

by Susan Terris

On a train from Victoria to Lake Louise, I found a deck of cards called 52 Things to Try Once in Your Life. Because I’m rather superstitious, it took ten years and sheltering because of covid-19 to remove the cellophane and look at the deck. Though I meant to look forward, the cards kept demanding I look back. Shuffling randomly, I decided it does not matter how many circuses I have watched or that, more than once, I’ve asked a stranger out. Ridden a motorcycle? Yes, as a teenager, though forbidden, I rode Louis Guttman’s around Hampton Park. Written the Great American Novel? Do 21 books published for children and young adults, add up to a yes here? And sure, I’ve milked a cow, yawned through an all-nighter, tasted snow, bought a lottery ticket, ridden in a hot air balloon, been on a safari. And I’ve flown a kite, changed a diaper, fed a horse, and slept under the stars. What about invent? Yes, in the early days of computers I trained with secretaries from law offices and PG&E on the new IBM Displaywriter. While doing this, I “invented” 2 new work-arounds for the machine that IBM added to their original brochure. Children’s books written: yes, already answered. I’ve gone fishing, read a whole book in one night, pooped in the woods, won awards, gone skinny dipping, been massaged, written and received love letters. (Is this getting boring? Too bad. Can’t stop here.) I’ve made a wish, bought stock, spoken in public. Front row seats? Yes, Saw Othello with James Earl Jones and noted in his death scene that he had plantars warts on the bottoms of both feet. I have written to a president but won’t say who it was or if I was praising or blaming him. And of course, I’ve been to a baseball game, a beauty salon, dressed to thrill (or tried to), climbed many mountains (literal and figurative), left a big tip, supported a good cause—like the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. I’ve watched something grow—not only my plants but my children, grandchildren, and now am watching great grandchildren.

 

I’ve also gone singing in the rain when I was about 17, after seeing Singin’ in the Rain, at the old Esquire movie theater with my best friend Susie and my 7 year old sister where we exited into rain, put up our umbrellas, and walked along the top of a low wall singing, "Singin’ in the Rain." But wait—stop. This is where the questions begin to get harder. Yes, I’ve had a tattoo yet not the one anyone wants. After a mastectomy and reconstruction, the newly formed nipple and areola were tattooed. So now, after this sober moment, I fan out the handful of unaccomplished or undesired cards. I’ve never read only the first and last page of War and Peace or any other book, never owned an autographed picture of someone famous, never stayed in bed all day even when sick. I have never thought of trying to forgive my parents who gave me little to complain about. I’ve never made a Life List or Bucket List but would like to visit the Hermitage Museum, see Angkor Wat, Easter Island, and the Great Barrier Reef (so I guess in my head, I have an unwritten list).

This takes me to the final two cards. Two yesses, I have saved for last. Have I asked important Life Questions? Yes, so each morning when I look in the bathroom mirror, I ask myself: Who am I? What am I doing? And why? Where am I going and why? Yes, there still is one more card. It says Face Mask. At any other time in my life, I would have just said yes: made them out of paper, papier maché, clay, plaster. Carved them from wood. But now, in the Time of Covid, the card haunts me. Eyes of the mask are closed like a death mask. And now I wear masks everywhere. Now the face mask is part of my morning mirror’s life questions. Now not where am I going, but will I or we ever go anywhere again or will we ever stop being afraid, stop masking (both literally and figuratively) our fears. Is there, I ask my mirror image each morning, even going to be a future? Will we ever again return to the life and the world as we once knew it?

Susan Terris’ recent books are Familiar Tense (Marsh Hawk) 2019; Take Two: Film Studies (Omnidawn) 2017, Memos (Omnidawn) 2015; and Ghost of Yesterday: New & Selected Poems (Marsh Hawk) 2012. She's the author of 7 books of poetry, 17 chapbooks, 3 artist's books, and one play.  Journals include The Southern Review, Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, and Ploughshares. A poem of hers appeared in Pushcart Prize XXXI. A poem from Memos was in Best American Poetry 2015. Her newest chapbook is Dream Fragments, which won the 2019 Swan Scythe Press Award. Ms. Terris is editor emerita of Spillway Magazine and a poetry editor at Pedestal.

GEORGE FROM POLAND

by Larry Levy

‘There’s more to me than being a denier of the Holocaust,’ says GOP nominee (pictured above) for Congress.” —Chicago Tribune: Daily Southtown, July 27, 2018

When they came, herding parents
brothers, sisters, playmates,
elders, cousins, infants,
into a few narrow streets,

we obeyed. Choice was the first
privilege to disappear. Used to edicts,
Papa shared stale bread, an old cursed
image of ourselves. Then they sicced

the dogs on us, huddled in fears
of night trains, the work farms.
Papa reassured: Has anyone died from stars,
from numbers burned on arms?

Somehow I outlasted cholera,
beatings, daily selections. I alone
came to Detroit, America,
removed the tattoo. Moved on.

One morning in a cafe
I heard neighbors: The ovens were a lie.
No Anne Frank or six million, they say.
Papa’s words return: You must survive.

People will not believe.
You must not give in, must try.
Tell them. Roll up your sleeve.

Oh Father, of what then did we die?

Larry Levy's poems have appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The South Carolina Review, Driftwood Review, Third Wednesday, Tenemos, Postcard Poems, and other literary paper and on-line publications. His poetry collections include I Would Stay Forever (Mayapple Press), All the Dead are Holy (Atmosphere Press), and What Outlives Us (Atmosphere Press). For several years he judged Third Wednesday's annual poetry contest. He and his wife live in Midland, MI where they direct plays and conduct workshops on acting and writing for the Midland Center for the Arts.

ENTRENCHMENT

by Lynnie Gobeille

This old woman lost all her power after reaching Turkey coming from Syria, on September 30, 2014. NurPhoto via Getty Images via Huff Post.

Having showered—I remove the bandages.
Look closely at the hallowed out skin.
I see the burnt spots
The singed flesh left
From the Doctor’s biopsy.
Note the spot she cauterized
To stop the bleeding.
Left with the memory of the scent
Like nothing I’d ever smelled before—

“Burning flesh” she said—
“has a distinct odor."

I go all Auschwitz; all Jewess
All checking my arm
For the tell-tale tattoo.
To be clear here:
I am not crazy.
For one moment I felt the fear . . .
The absolute awareness
Of the harm
One Human can inflict upon another.
In that one second of olfactory recognition
I understood why my grandmother changed her last name.

Came to America
My mother in tow.

Lynnie Gobeille is passionate about poetry.

PROSTHETICS AND AESTHETICS

by Janet Chalmers

“It’s a tremendous amount to put your body through, and it’s not like we’re going to get our breasts back,” said Rebecca Pine, 40, who decided against reconstruction surgery after a mastectomy. Credit Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times.

after “‘Going Flat’ After Breast Cancer,” by Roni Caryn Rabin 

in The New York Times, October 31 1, 2016.

Even before it was removed she knew she’d
have the tender cicatrix tattooed, would search

the gallery’s designs of ivy, snakes and dragons
intertwined until she found the single rose with

dagger thorns to shield her naked archer’s chest,
would use her grandmother’s antique crystal

serving bowl to display with warrior’s disdain

the powdered pink prothesis she would refuse.

J. Gerard Chalmers (Janet Chalmers) is a New York writer with an MFA from Columbia University. She has published poems, reviews and social commentary in many literary publications such as Bellevue Literary Review, Barrow Street, New Millennium Writings, Fogged Clarity, The Naugatuck River Review, Inkwell and the Kenyon Review (online). She was nominated for the 2014 anthology, Best New Poets and was a semi-finalist in the 2015 U. of Wisconsin Brittingham Prize and Felix Pollak Prize poetry series. She is currently writing a book of poetry called Scorpion Love about Picasso's mistress, the artist Dora Maar.

WHAT FEMINISM MEANS

by Devon Balwit

Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti courts controversy after ‘feminist tattoo’ is spotted on her arm.
—The Independent, June 1, 2016

for Taraneh Alidoosti

on your arm, a fist
in the news, a buzz
in the responses, venom

on your arm, a symbol
in your heart, yearning
in the threatened, rage

on your arm, a choice
in choice, desire
in the blinkered, fear

on your body, breasts
in all chests, hearts
in the old guard, scorn

in your body, a womb
from that womb, a child
to the State, your role

in your reach, a wish
in all wishes, potential
in us, support


Devon Balwit is a writer and teacher living in the Pacific Northwest.  Her work has appeared in TheNewVerse.News once before.  Her recent work has appeared or will soon in The Fog Machine, The Cape Rock, The Fem, Of(f) Course, drylandlit_press, and The Prick of the Spindle.

RAW STUFF

by Carolyn Gregory



Their guns become their dolls,
each with a girl's name on it
and carved tattoo
they caress and polish
like vintage cars

With summer on their hands
and nothing playing at the movies
after the slasher film goes
the way of its bloody machete,

they train on tin cans
popping off little soldiers
on a fence,
steady as she comes
before antlers and coyotes follow --
no time for sentiment

Back with their kill,
they puff up chests and strut
as they continue
making men out of raw stuff,
rifle in a backpack,
Glock in a leather pocket.


Carolyn Gregory's poems and essays on music have been published in American Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Bellowing Ark, Seattle Review, and Stylus. She was featured in For Lovers and Other Losses. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2011 and is a past recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council award. Her book, Open Letters, was published by Windmill Editions in 2009 and her next, Facing the Music, in 2012. She has been working on a series about the history of guns in America for several years now.