HOLES

by Christine Sikorski

Federal immigration agents tackled and arrested a Somali American man in Minneapolis on Tuesday and detained him for about two hours for no apparent reason other than his ethnicity… Mubashir declined to share his last name out of fear for his and his family’s safety, but he gave a detailed account of the incident to reporters, who also viewed video that city officials shared recorded on a business’ security camera and a bystander’s mobile phone. Mubashir, who moved to the United States as a small boy and became a naturalized American citizen, said that he stepped onto a sidewalk near 4th Street and Cedar Avenue during his lunch break when two masked men approached him. The Cedar-Riverside neighborhood is the heart of the city’s Somali American community. Sensing trouble, he ducked into a restaurant. They followed him inside, dragged him out and forcibly arrested him. The agents handcuffed Mubashir, took him across 4th Street and pushed him onto his knees in the snow. One put him in a choke hold. —Minneapolis Public Radio, December 12, 2025

After the mayoral forum, a candidate and I remain at the table. 

He apologizes for not being “on” today, for not realizing 

his back had been turned to me. He’s tired. New baby. His first. 

Would you like to see a picture? he asks, showing me his phone, 

the stunning infant. I would lose sleep for him always, he says.

 

My husband kneels on the library floor to better survey 

a shelf of jazz CDs, as a group of preschoolers scuttle around him. 

A small boy approaches, holds out a box of chess pieces, asks

something in Somali. It appears he wants to put the box away 

but doesn’t know where it belongs. A teacher comes to help.

The phlebotomist greets us, speaks to my daughter in a quiet voice, 

assures she is comfortable in the reclining chair. After the blood draw, 

he tells me some people say he should speak more loudly. 

My daughter has been told that all her life, I say, and we talk about 

communicating across cultures, about what signifies humility.

Our US representative leaves a phone message, inviting us to a town hall. 

She wants to hear all of her constituents’ voices. The president calls her

garbage, dreams of throwing her away, along with the candidate, 

the little boy, the phlebotomist. He laughs about shitholes and hellholes— 

his heart, an empty hole.

Christine Sikorski’s work has appeared in Waterstone, Little Patuxent Review, Quartet, One Art, This Was 2020: Minnesotans Write About Pandemics and Social Justice in a Historic, and elsewhere. Her honors include a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant and Academy of American Poets Prizes. She has taught at two universities, the Loft Literary Center, a homeless shelter, a community center, and other venues. She lives with her family in Minneapolis.

DON’T MAKE ME REPEAT MYSELF

by Karen Greenbaum-Maya

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

I dreamt DT was my high school government teacher. Definitely him. Had the waddle in the walk, wore the oversized blue suit (not in the cool David Byrne way), that weird long tie. He’d lecture us, shout at us, breathe like a dragon, then sit sniveling behind his desk. Feeling sorry for himself, I guess. He’d get all red in the face, jump up and down or stamp his feet, and his combover would flap. It was too scary to be funny. The grades he gave totally depended on how much you sucked up to him. I knew I needed to pass this class to graduate high school so my other three degrees would count. I was afraid of what he might do to me, but one day I just lost it. Shouted back. Shouted even louder. Spoke truth to blowhard. You’re wrong! Just plain wrong! About everything. Everything you do is wrong. The only true thing you ever said was that you’d date your daughter. Everyone decent hates you. You are a bad bad boy. People looked at me like I was crazy, fighting him, but I felt like I could finally get some air.

Karen Greenbaum-Maya, retired psychologist, former German Lit major, and restaurant reviewer, has spent much time on both sides of the doctor-patient relationship. She is widely published. Collections include Burrowing Song, Eggs Satori, and Kafka’s Cat(Kattywompus Press), The Book of Knots and Their Untying (Kelsay Books), and, The Beautiful Leaves and Eve the Inventor (Bamboo Dart Press). She co-curates Fourth Saturdays, a long-running poetry series in Claremont, California.

THE LAST JEW IN VINNITSA

 by Roselyn Kubek

Detail showing the murderer now identified as Jackobus Omnen from the photograph known as "The Last Jew in Vinnitsa" Warning: Viewers will find the original photo at the link provided disturbing.

At Last, a Name for the Murderer in a Holocaust Photo. —The New York Times, November 28, 2025

Now he has a name.

Or we have it—

Finally we know what to call the person 

whose ennui pulled a trigger in front of:

     one photographer

     two dozen standing-bored

     so many piled bodies

We learn this murderer 

was once a school teacher

who still teaches though armed 

with a different lesson

      Jackobus Omnen

How pleasant to roll that 

off history’s tongue

to store in the sepia of then

It’s a name full of roundness 

like the anonymous circle 

of witnesses

like the shallow pit where 

a man sits on the edge

perpetually anticipating 

the end

Chin raised

he watches us all

from the bottom 

of a photograph

and waits to become the last.

Roselyn Kubek is a teacher and a New England poet whose work has been featured in a number of publications and venues including, most recently, Mass Poetry’s Hard Work of Hope series and the Maine Poets Epistolary Poetry Exchange. 

THE BOOK OF QUIET GIRLS WHO BURN

by Linda K. Sienkiewicz

To the pediatrician who insisted on taking a rectal temperature with me across his knees,

To the pediatrician who tweaked my nipples during a physical,

To the neighbor’s grandfather who worked his fingers into my shorts,

To the stranger in Woolworth’s who grabbed my hand to rub against his crotch and ran,

To the boy who called me into the pool for one last swim and tried to drown me,

To the mechanical drawing teacher who rubbed his elbow against my breasts while checking my work,

To the employer who told his female, high-school-aged staff that whoever got the most sales would win an overnight date with him,

To the guy who raced his car through town while I screamed for life from the passenger seat after I said I was breaking up with him,

To the recruiter who told me to wear a short skirt to the job interview,

To the hiring manager who instructed waitress applicants to go heavy on makeup,

To the neurologist who sat on the arm of my chair, pinning me there in nothing but a hospital gown, while discussing my options,

To the employer who gave me a gold necklace but told me never to wear it at work,

To the guy who date raped me in a warehouse loft,

To the guy who parked in the woods and shoved my head into his crotch,

To the guy who said he should rape me after I broke up with him,

I remember every one of you.

Quiet. Quiet piggy.

Linda K. Sienkiewicz is the author of the multi-finalist award-winning novel Love and Other Incurable Ailments, forthcoming novel In the Context of Love, five poetry chapbooks and a children’s picture book. Among her awards are a poetry chapbook and a Pushcart Prize Nomination in poetry. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and serves as Honorary Director of Detroit Working Writers.

IT’S SUNRISE IN AMERICA

by Michelle DeRose

Click here to see video Bradley posted on X.

Federal agents detained an immigrant woman with a pending asylum case and a work permit inside [Rayito de Sol] a Chicago children’s day care on Wednesday morning, local officials said. —Newsweek, November 5, 2025

The men are large, clad all-black,

balaclavad like ninja costumes

four year-olds wore last week.

Stiff flinty edges vest their chests. 

They wield the only guns.

 

Two-on-one they seize the teacher,

batter-ram the door with her head.

Toddlers stare, she screams, parents 

shake. The sun barely up for the day,

care kidnapped, spirited away.

Michelle DeRose wants to return to writing poems about her recently departed cat and the spot on her dog's back. Too many images from her original home town, Chicago, block that these days.

NO KINGS ALLOWED

by DJ Benhaim

Cartoon by Omar Al Abdallat.

I.

In the beginning was asphalt.
And the word was protest.
And the word was pixelated,
buffering between freedom and feed.

A crowd of imperfect citizens
chants like a country relearning its name.
The chorus is improvised:
No kings allowed—no crowns, no conquerors,
no saviors in tailor-made sympathy.

Their voices ripple through barricades,
become algorithm, become echo—
a national heartbeat with a stutter.



II.

I have seen democracy drag itself
through a century of luminous slogans,
its reflection flickering in each broken screen.
Still insisting: I am not done.

Once, the Founders gathered by candlelight—
afraid of monarchs, afraid of mobs.
They drafted compromise as scripture,
named it law and order,
muttered prayers to Reason
as though Reason were a god inclined to listen.

Some nights I wonder:
who will amend the amendments,
who will serve the servants,
who will remind us that equality
was never intended to mimic sameness?



III.

—No Kings Allowed—
the maxim mutates through the crowd.
Each repetition, a revision:

No Kings (but maybe a firm hand).
No Kings (but someone must decide).
No Kings (unless it’s my kind).

The chant becomes confession.
The confession becomes commerce.
Every democracy finds its vendors.

A man sells T-shirts beside a food truck:
LIMITED EDITION FREEDOM.
The poet buys one—
because irony, still, is cheaper than hope.



IV.

O Republic,
child of contradiction—
you legislate mercy
and enforce it with tear gas.
You proclaim all men,
then redact the margins.
Your pledge is a mirror:
every mouth repeats it—
none can see its cracks.

Still,
you endure—
awkward and miraculous,
a choir harmonizing
in seventeen unresolved keys.



V.

Night closes in.
The crowd separates into numbers.
The flag waves like a faulty signal.

Somewhere, a migrant waits at the checkpoint,
a senator rehearses his talking points,
a teacher grades an essay on liberty
with a trembling red pen.

And the poet—our witness,
our reluctant chorus—
writes in the margin of his notebook:

We are not failing,
we are rehearsing.

He closes the book,
steps into the dark,
and feels the fragile promise
of a nation still deciding
whether freedom needs a throne—
or simply
a place to sit down and listen.

DJ Benhaim is an emerging poet from the Windy City—Chicago, Illinois, whose work explores current events, global awareness as well as Afro American culture and the preservation of its stories, history, and legacy. An avid supporter of the city’s spoken word and poetry community, he can often be found cycling along the lakefront, soaking up the sounds of local jazz and blues, or experimenting with a camera in hand. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sheila-Na-Gig’s AMPLIFY Anthology, Kinsman Quarterly, and African Writer Magazine.

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.

FIRING MORAH

by Stacey Z Lawrence

Morah Hebrew School Teacher Mug

I lean on a miniature 

sea blue chair, the color of Israel

& conduct my class to the curtain call with a 

rudimentary rendition of 

Hatikvah. The boys & girls adjust their babushkas 

torn from superhero 

sheets. They pretend to be partisans, they pretend

to survive genocide with water guns & plastic bricks

plopping the toy props across the stage like burial plots

& the synagogue chapel 

explodes

in waves of gratitude reigning 

down, micro-rubble crushed 

under rubber spinning & spinning 

strikes me as my students hold hands

swaying like paper cut-outs 

mouthing Hebrew words they 

do not understand

squinting & studying me, 

their Morah’s lips we blast

out this anthem beak fed from birth 

myths spun from milk, guts, honey &

the soot of charred Jews 

chanting hollow prayers into green wind 

we cradle some bald-cackling madcap 

who flies rabid dragonflies beyond his fancy 

fence like  

Dylan Klebold with a broken console 

       Boom, Boom, Kaboom, 

Fizz, Kaboom, Fizzle, Silence.

He crunches on fried falafel tossing

bits of chicks & peas, digging the edge of

that six-pointed star between his yellow teeth

planting olive trees & Long Island Zionists

beneath Alephs & Bets 

like Herzl’s Thieves of the West

his flying monkeys, 

stripping us of our Ashkenazi selves 

our Yiddish, our guttural cadence,

depositing our smoldering mishpocha

us Kikes still stinking of Zyklon B,

bitter the almond smell of 

neglected eggs, shoveling us 

beneath BritishpoundsAmericandollars,

wailing limestone.

Author's note: In December of 2023, days after the congregation celebrated my work with my students, the local synagogue fired me, prohibiting my entrance forever. It was the first night of Chanukah. 

Stacey Z Lawrence is a veteran teacher of English and a Literature Professor. She has an MAT in Theater and Speech and is a poet for Writing The Land, a collaboration between poets and protected land. Her poetry was shortlisted for the Fish Prize in 2019, and 2021 and nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2022. Stacey’s first collection of poems Fall Risk was released to acclaim in August 2021 through Finishing Line Press. 

THE DEATH OF A POET

by Roxanne Doty

These are the poets and writers who have been killed in Gaza. —Literary Hub, December 21, 2023

Before they were bombed from the sky 

warheads raining on their crucified city

littered with the bones of winter

and blood of children

they were a poet and a teacher

a mother and father who understood 

the hope of words, the way they slipped 

through walls and checkpoints

couldn’t be stopped by soldiers 

or guns, how they empowered

defied the laws of physics

and occupation and oppression

 

To the secretaries of war who murdered the poet

words were sterile instruments, tools

like wrenches and screwdrivers, hammers

from the hardware store, like bunker buster bombs 

and hellfire missiles from a rich country

with democracy and security on its lips

and complicity on its hands, to these priests

of destruction, the poet was a calculation

the result of collateral damage equations

estimates of death rankings of acceptable levels 

of slaughter

 

The poet was killed in their home 

and in a school and a hospital and a UN shelter

and a refugee camp and on a war-torn street

and waving a white flag

before they died the poet had asked

When shall this pass?

 

The poet understood that words are fragile

even with their power could crumble and die

they need an audience to listen

to absorb to act and the poet knew 

that all the children of Gaza 

are poets too

Roxanne Doty lives in Tempe, Arizona. Her debut novel Out Stealing Water was published by Regal House Press, August 30. 2022.  Her first poetry collection will be published by Kelsay Books in the spring of 2024. Her short story “Turbulence” (Ocotillo Review) was nominated for the 2019 Pushcart prize for short fiction. Other stories and poems have appeared in Third Wednesday, Quibble Lit, Superstition Review, Forge, I70 Review, Soundings Review, Four Chambers Literary Magazine, Lascaux Review, Lunaris Review, Journal of Microliterature, The New Verse News, Saranac Review,Gateway Review and Reunion-The Dallas Review.