WEDDING IN ISRAEL

by Jacqueline Coleman-Fried

The green cotton nightgown—clean, 

stuffed next to sweaty 

T-shirts—is going home.

I hope not to hear again

the phone alert go off

in my gut, a morbid tuning fork.

I thank the cousins—sojourners 

with me to this fête—who,

bent over phones, found 

the fixer, the vans, the flights.

Thank the lover back home—pounding

head, twisted stomach—who pleaded,

Keep going.  

On the road to Amman, another siren.

We enter a concrete capsule

by a gas station.

Close the door.

 

 

Author’s note: Recently I traveled to Israel for a family wedding. Just hours after the last dance, Israel and Iran began attacking each other. Israel’s airport closed, trapping me, and the whole country, under barrages of missiles and drones. On the road to Jordan, and a flight out, I endured one final air raid siren and shelter. Even escaping, there was no escape.

Jacqueline Coleman-Fried is a poet living in Tuckahoe, NY. Her work has appeared in The New Verse News, Sheila-Na-Gig, Nixes Mate, and Streetlight Magazine.

TODAY THE SKY BLED RED

by Kyle Hina

Today the morning sky bled
red with memories that I can
only imagine from a far, all
caught up in the air beneath
the hazy sun. Wisps of a thing 
infinitesimally small in size but
of infinite magnitude, summoned to
one last sail across heaven’s sea.

Somewhere in there, I’m sure,
is the country blue farmhouse 
that grandpa built, with the tan
guitar in the corner that turned 
him into Johnny and grandma 
into June when he played it. 

There are the skinny emerald
pines that dotted the trail of
a friend’s first date.  And the 
silver and rust car that caught
her sobs when she found 
that love isn’t always evergreen.  

There is the ivory wedding gown, 
all bejeweled and moth-balled, 
that hung in the closet, still 
awaiting its turn to renew a
couple's love. And the matching 
aqua tie that the husband was 
too scared to wear, for fear it 
might find that brown tea stain 
to match all of the others.

A teal blanket that went home
with the baby and the yellow
cleats he wore when he kicked
his last goal. Violet flowers, 
magenta scrapbooks. A faded 
purple skateboard and greyscale
photo of the family reunion, 1989.

On and on, memories too 

numerous to count rise in a 
prism’s worth of colors, but 
carry too much despair to 
form a rainbow. Instead they 
coalesce into a crimson blanket 
that covers the city like a car 
too old to ever be used again. 

In another world, white men 
in black suits point fingers and
shout names, maneuvering for
attention like children at a funeral.  
But my eyes are on the horizon,
where tonight the sky bleeds red.  

Kyle Hina is a husband, father, software engineer, and musician living in Zanesville, Ohio with his wife, two sons and dog. He has one published short fiction work on 101words.org .

A JEWISH WEDDING

by Jacqueline Coleman-Fried

Wild lilac orchids frame

a garden curled in jade

rainforest, where two ask,

How are we so lucky when the sons 

of Abraham are fighting?

The state built on ash 

in the desert kills to survive. 

A heel smashes a glass.

Jacqueline Coleman-Fried is a poet in Tuckahoe, NY. Her work has appeared in The New Verse News, Topical Poetry, Consequence, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and Sparks of Calliope.

THE BAKER'S SONG

by Tricia Knoll

The Supreme Court on Monday passed up the chance to decide whether a baker’s religious objections to same-sex marriage mean she can refuse to create a wedding cake for a gay couple when state law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. Photo: Melissa Klein, co-owner of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, in Gresham, Ore., in 2013. (Everton Bailey Jr./AP) —The Washington Post, June 17, 2019

I got hooked on hood ornaments
(not naked figureheads, glaring skulls,
or flying chrome goddesses on stud mounts)
early on. Swooping red firefighter hats
gold eagles on flagpoles—
top-notch things on top.

A baker’s puffy hat lured me
to flour and frosting—
whisper your cake wish—
kitties, mermaids, pirate ships
Thomas the tank, horses charging
on a cinnamon sugar beach,
king cakes: you dream it, I bake it,
ice it, add a top knot.
I’ve got all kinds.

My favorites
are wedding cakes, love cakes,
banana cream to pineapple upside down
rocked in a sea of sugar cream,

two women, two men, people
in wheel chairs, dark men, light women,
dark women, light men, men in skirts,
women in tuxedos,
one guy married a tree.

That’s all right with me.

Tricia Knoll is proud to live in Vermont which was the first state to allow same-sex marriages. She lived in Oregon when this legal case first erupted. She is a poet who would consider marrying a tree if she weren't already married and has children who are trees.

ROYAL MUGS

by S. O. Fasrus

“The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance." —Sue Townsend

Royal Mugs with royal mugshots
Royal mugshots on plates
Royal mugshots on keyrings
In bargain store crates—

Royal mugshots on cushions
Royal mugs on your mat
Royal mugshots on face-masks
And endless old tat.

I wonder who’s buying
On this royal shopping spree—
As I’m not big on BS
You can bet it’s not me.

S. O. Fasrus is a Social Research Interviewer and Social Justice Activist,. Recent poems in Culture Matters, Easy Street, and the anthology Poems For Grenfell Tower (Onslaught Press).

THE MAYOR WEDS THE ALLIGATOR PRINCESS

by Luisa A. Igloria

San Pedro Huamelula, Mexico

1

Know
that I do
not take
these vows
lightly—
To wed ‘s
a serious
undertaking
fraught  with
more than
what’s fleeting:
thrashing of
limbs and tails
in the nuptial
bed, as the whole
town erupts
in a chorus
of bells and
feasting—
Diplomacy
takes skill
and  just
the right
amount of
daring:
I’ll swing
you round
the plaza
in a dance
meant to
cajole your
benevolence:
and the gifts
of a year’s
good fishing
in our nets,
tax I pay for
your watery
reprieve.

2

Dear mortal
Bridegroom,
your human
wife and child
have dressed me
in a trousseau:
lace underskirt
and a coronet
of small white
flowers; and for
good measure,
a round of duct
tape fastening
my jaws. I do
not, technically,
therefore, give
my consent
but play along,
though I obey
a different
order—In
my world,
chance is not
a thing to be
propitiated—
It prowls
the shallows,
sometimes
small as
a passing
minnow;
other times
it breaks
the surface
just because
it can, maw
opening
to the sun,
teeth brighter
than a dowry
of diadems.


Luisa A. Igloria’s most recent publication credits include Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University Press, 2014) and Night Willow (Phoenicia Publishing, 2014).