MARCH 27, 2023

by Alice Campbell Romano

Bronxville.

The rain is scant at this very moment, 

sky almost blue, but it comes and goes

in pelting drops. Here, just now, balls bounce 

against air: red, yellow, green, until I see

they decorate a transparent, plastic umbrella,

a dome of delight where safe from random drops

a child dances down the sidewalk. A skinny stick 

of a kid, maybe nine, in a long, silly raincoat 

mom must have insisted upon. But who cares.

School’s out now, the umbrella is fun and

soon I’ll be home to snacks and hugs. Oh,

such strong hugs.

Nashville.

One image stays. A face behind a school bus window.

A child, a little girl, the caption says. Yes, that’s right,

but when I first see the picture, she has no age. Her lips 

are bent, stretched open so wide side-to-side they eat 

into her cheeks. Her chin is a crinkled dimple squashed 

against the glass, her frown pulls a hard vee down 

between her eyes to her hot red nose. Her hand presses 

the glass, pushes away what she left outside. I don’t 

hear her scream. Of course not, I’m looking at a picture

taken from outside the bus. The child is frozen behind 

the window glass in the red heat of wordless pain. She 

may scream, may break down and cry, but not yet. 

The photographer—what astonishing luck—releases

this moment of unbearable distortion—her little face, 

the rest of her life. And now I notice, stenciled above 

the bus window, a descriptor—Emergency Exit. There 

are no emergency exits. Voice the scream for her. Take 

to the streets. Make it so children dance as they go home.

Editor's note: The photograph described in the second section of this poem accompanies Marsha Owens' March 27 prose poem in The New Verse News.

Alice Campbell Romano lived a dozen years in Italy where she adapted Italian movie scripts into English, married a dashing Italian movie-maker, made children, and moved with the family to the U.S., where they built, she wrote, and the children grew. Her poems have appeared in—among other venues—Prometheus Dreaming, Persimmon Tree, Pink Panther Magazine, Orchards Poetry, New Croton Review; Beyond Words, Writing in a Woman's Voice, Quartet Journal, Instant Noodles Devil's Press, Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press. In January, she was awarded HONORABLE MENTION in The Comstock Review's 2022 Chapbook contest, "...not an award that we give every year, but an honor set aside for a few manuscripts." Alice swooned. 

TIME OUT

by Marc Swan

Photo by Nadia Povalinska "who recently fled her home in Ukraine. It is from before the war, just a few weeks and a lifetime ago." —Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From an American, March 11, 2022.

In the photo, her back is to us.

She holds a scarlet red umbrella,

perhaps a harbinger of spring

or an unknowing portent 

of things to come,

that shields her head, 

catches snow 

falling from nearby trees

in a quiet park 

away from busy streets.

Late winter leaves 

glow cinnamon 

on snow-covered branches.

There are tracks, 

but she walks alone

in a small city in Ukraine.

The way life was before 

bombs and rockets fell,

hospitals, churches, clinics fell,

museums, homes, restaurants fell, 

and people—

defending their way of life

now buried in mass graves.

Today two US journalists— 

one dead, the other wounded

just outside Kyiv.

Marc Swan, a retired vocational rehabilitation counselor, lives in coastal Maine. His fifth collection, all it would take, was published in 2020 by tall-lighthouse (UK).

NATURAL ORDER OF THE HOUSEHOLD

by Jennifer Clark

Graphic illustrating Bill Gothard’s 7 Basic Principles. Source: Raw Story. 

“As I became a teenage young man I was constantly tempted to have lots of wrong thoughts, 

and often battled to keep my heart right.” 

—Josh Duggar, August 21, 2015, at the Josh & Anna Duggar Family website.

It’s pouring porn. Filth floods the streets. Unborn babes tumble
from the sky and clog the gutters. Nobody here trusts roofs,
especially Christ, who is patrolling the attic holding one hell
of a big umbrella.

Christ’s canopy looms over the husband who is on the second
floor slipping into loafers while clasping an umbrella,
a poor imitation of Christ’s, a little less mighty, but still, bigger

than the parasol his wife who—may she always be scurrying
one floor beneath him—holds over their 14, 15, 16 kids
and counting. With her free hand she spoons oatmeal
into her children’s mouths, then mops the dirty, dirty floors.

All these umbrellas make it difficult to move.
Dangerous, even. Here and there a lamp shatters.

The firstborn, Josh, craves a glimpse of sky. As a teen, finds it
standing in the laundry room folding a blue dress, prowls into
the bedroom for more, steals some as she pretends to sleep.

Here and there a vase shatters.

When his sky-snatching ways are discovered, Josh is sent to
a training center where he learns all about umbrellas: how to
open them, wave them about, and never, ever close them.

He returns with a brand new umbrella. Everyone feels safe.

Some years later, Josh marries a girl named Anna and Ashley
Madison—who loves to feel the rain on her skin— tells him
Life is short. Have an affair. He listens.

His wife blames her umbrella. If only it was prettier. If only she
had held it higher. She buys blue eyeshadow and starts walking
through the house on tiptoes while her husband
stands just as he has been taught, under thin ribs
radiating refuge, the whole bloody sky wailing.


Jennifer Clark lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her first book of poetry, Necessary Clearings, was published by Shabda Press. 

CHINA REIGN

by David Feela

Protesters in Hong Kong continued to demand a fully free vote in elections due in 2017 for the post of chief executive - Hong Kong's leader. Numbers were, however, far lower than the previous week. China has said that, under Hong Kong law, voters will be able to vote freely but from an approved list. --Photo by Philippe Lopez/AFP via BBC Week in Pictures

As shelter from Beijing weather,

the hand that holds the umbrella knows

repression shreds all hope

but in Hong Kong each umbrella blossoms

like a flower, shields the blindsided from mace, 

transforms the protester into a shadow 

under Xi Jinping’s glare.  How the years 

of bad luck for opening an umbrella 

must be weighed against the threat 

of living where truth never shines.

Remember this season of umbrellas,

this garden of good intentions.


David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book, The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays, How Delicate These Arches  , released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.