FOR INDIA

by Janet Leahy

A mass cremation of victims who died due to Covid-19 is seen at a crematorium ground in New Delhi, India, April 22, 2021. (Reuters)

Smoke billows from the crematoriums,

the assembly line of corpses winds

through the streets of Mumbai

—once this was a route for the pearl trade.

The assembly line of corpses

taxies, trucks, bicycles,

—on the long ago route for the pearl trade.

Today the sky leaden with ash.

Taxies, trucks, bicycles

carry the dying, carry the dead

sky leaden with ash

tanks of oxygen spent.

They carry the dying, the dead

through the streets of Mumbai

tanks of oxygen spent

smoke billows from crematoriums.

Janet Leahy is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. She works with writers in the greater Milwaukee— Waukesha area. Her poetry appears in Midwest Prairie Review, Halfway to the North Pole, Art in so Many Words,  The Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar, and others. She has published two collections of poetry.

SO TWO GOATS WERE STUCK ON A BEAM UNDER A BRIDGE

by Jill Crainshaw

Amidst a turbulent week on Wall Street, two goats were found stranded on a bridge beam in western Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Goat photo source: Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission via NPR.

stormy

with a chance of thundersnow

these are the headlines we are living in

curators clamoring for credibility on facebook fake newsfeeds

talking heads trading on trending turbulence

the bald eagle has landed—on the mariners shoulder—looking for bears

hugging the life out of

fragile economies

while easter bunnies on the loose quadruple a towns investment

a teenagers hair creates a buzz breaking into the prophetic sound of her silence

as bells toll to remember the king who had a dream that one day—one day—

and a presidents goldilocks

blow in the

wind

Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, NC.