DEAL

by Margaret D. Stetz

Illustration: Nicola Jennings/The Guardian

that future wealth between her legs—
how much will you
snatch?
 
the territory of her arms—
where will you
amputate?
 
those children clutching at her breast—
will you drag them
away?
 
in the history of auctions
another shameful sale
you feel you own
and now will barter
with another Master
on his terms
 
this body
this Ukraine

Margaret D. Stetz is the Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Delaware, as well as a widely published poet. She is also a Ukrainian American, proud of her heritage.

INTIMIDATION AND BLACKMAIL FOR THE PURPOSE OF TAKING OVER THE WORLD

by Terese Coe

Watch for the multiple rows of replacement teeth,

the not-unfair comparison to sharks,

the antipathies that betray the territorial,

the sonar for the nascent dictatorial.

 

Terese Coe’s poems, prose, and translations appear in The New Verse News, Agenda, Alaska Quarterly Review, Cincinnati Review, The Classical Outlook, Cyphers, Hopkins Review, Metamorphoses, The Moth, New American Writing, New Scotland Writing, Ploughshares, Poetry, Poetry Review, The Stinging Fly, Stone Canoe, Threepenny Review, the TLS, and many other international publications. Her book Shot Silk was short-listed for the 2017 Poets Prize, and her poem “More” was heli-dropped across London in the 2012 Olympics Rain of Poems. Giorno Poetry Systems, West Chester Poetry Conference, Barnstone Translation Award, and others have awarded her prizes or honors and scholarships.

REFUGEES

by Marietta Calvanico

I always called them yard cats,
Their numbers increased
after the fire at Randy’s—
Refugees,
The self-imagined puma
who lives in my house
never goes outside
but outside belongs to her,
and she wants them off
Her Territory,
tail switching back and forth
with great agitation until
she turns her back to erase
their existence.

The calico one, the black one,
the tabbies, orange and gray,
the one with half a tail,
Refugees,
I watch them move through
my garden,
sometimes pausing,
looking up, maybe to see me
at my window
and my knee-jerk reaction is
to give them the food
my own won’t eat
But I’ve been sagely warned—
Don’t do it.

Don’t feed them,
If you feed them,
they will never leave.


Marietta Calvanico lives in Staten Island, NY.  After spending a bit more than two decades in advertising/marketing, she now works with her architect husband and has been able to devote more time to writing and music.  Her poetry has appeared in The Bare Root Review, the damselfly press, Poem2day, Word Salad Poetry Magazine, River Poets, The Driftwood Review, and OccuPoetry; her short fiction in Joyful; and her non-fiction in Still Crazy and Avalon Literary Review.