April 2019 | poetry
In Whose Custody the Flags?
The flags are at full-staff
Though Jackeline is dead
Of dehydration
And the Guatemalan boy whose name
Has not been released
Is dead
Of the flu—
They died in our custody.
The flags remain at full-staff,
Their stars going dim with grief
As refugees beg
For a glass of water
Or a dose of Ibuprofen and Amoxicillin
On the kitchen counter,
Next to the bills and Church flier—
They died in our custody.
Just after Jackeline died
But before the Guatemalan boy
Whose name has not been released,
My son Richard was born
At a world-class hospital:
8 pounds 6 ounces. Apgar score of 8;
The birth announcement on Facebook
Garnered 160 likes and 47 comments—
They died in our custody.
In whose custody are these flags?
In whose name are they raised and lowered,
Repaired or replaced, honored or disgraced?
I ask because
Jackeline is dead
Of dehydration,
The Guatemalan boy whose name
Has not been released
Is dead
Of the flu—
And they died in America.
—
(Jakelin Ameí Rosmery Caal Maquin died at the age of seven on December 8, 2018
My son was born on Saturday, December 22, 2018
The Guatemalan boy died on Christmas Eve, 2018 at the age of eight. He was later identified as Felipe Alonzo-Gomez
Written Wednesday, December 25, 2018)
In Polite Society
In polite society we hold doors open,
Say thanks and please, wear crisp
Suits when we drop bombs.
In polite society we shake the hands
Of blacks and Latinos and native peoples,
Smile as we strip them of their rights.
In polite society we wear bright jewels
Mined by slaves, decry slavery,
Tip generously.
In polite society we destroy the Earth
To make us rich, create jobs
That pay the poor to be poor.
And in polite society
We are never rude, never mean—
We murder democratically.
The Gardener
We have pitched an innocent man against the
Thousand blades of grass.
Once a week the battle is waged;
Each green sword glints with dew.
But our man is well armed: we have given
Him motors, gasoline, blades faster
Than the wind, and so he goes trampling
Because our yard needs taming:
He leaves the lawn strewn with
Wilting corpses—their rot attracts
A pair of curious bluebirds.
For the moment victory smells like sprinklers
And empty fields.
For the moment our house is in order.
Then a rainstorm soaks the earth
Like an oil-well run amok,
Wreaks havoc on gutters and sewers,
Floods the streets, knocks down trees,
Holes us up in our homes,
Where through windows we observe
Hope erase carnage.
A week passes and the proud grass
Again waves beneath the wind.
The grass has a human spirit that
Grows endlessly, sprouts from the soil,
And wonders why we bother to hire
Mercenaries to fight a war
That must never come to an end.
Andy Posner
Andy Posner grew up in Los Angeles and earned an MA in Environmental Studies at Brown. While there, he founded Capital Good Fund, a nonprofit that provides financial services to low-income families. When not working, he enjoys reading, writing, watching documentaries, and ranting about the state of the world. He has had his poetry published in several journals, including Burningword Literary Journal (which nominated his poem ‘The Machinery of the State’ for the Pushcart Poetry Prize), Noble/Gas Quarterly, and The Esthetic Apostle.
April 2019 | poetry
City highways take the future
around the bend of the river
of money. Women assume further control.
The next human world aims its nuclear
torpedoes, as transcontinental jets
haunt the place, taking off and landing
on autopilot. Sons decide they’re daughters,
while the compass spin undergoes
its heavy journey across the charred
proving grounds of spring. Beetles burrow
into trees high up, where winter ends
and may return less often. Alien weather
balloons crack into a dimensionless chill.
Elk herds edge north, as the north pole
down-drains into newly claimed shipping
lanes. Parabolic receivers scan for eyes
of doubt over ends and their means.
Blue-suited company men gas up directly
removed from undead talk of extinctions.
A long hot kiss familiar with liberated
hip bones wavers before the collapse
of procreative love. Forebears continue
to break up and drift off from work shoes
and overcoats. Habits that grew out of fear
into lifestyles refuse to reveal their North
American arrogance in its rainwater
spend-drift street-carried flatness
under shirts and blank-slate asking
for reassurance around petroglyphs
that dwarf the possible ways to feel.
James Grabill
James Grabill’s work appears in Caliban, Harvard Review, Terrain, Mobius, Shenandoah, Seattle Review, Stand, and many others. Books – Poem Rising Out of the Earth (1994), An Indigo Scent after the Rain (2003), Lynx House Press. Environmental prose poems, Sea-Level Nerve: Books One (2014), Two (2015), Wordcraft of Oregon. For many years, he taught all kinds of writing as well as “systems thinking” and global issues relative to sustainability.
April 2019 | nonfiction
March
As in, pick up your mud-crusted boots and move along. Forward, onward. Stopping to ponder one’s thoughts could lead to a frozen death, a swampy drowning.
March
As in, the January memory of one million bodies filling the DC green (not green at all), the wind cold and biting on our cheeks, my children separated from me. They were near the Metro station, not far from where I clung to a flag-post but we could not traverse the sea of protesters. We could not march, or even move. Our arms shook, holding up signs of anger, and love. Winter, then spring.
March
As in, rain for ten days, stop for two. The trees bloom briefly, confused. They drop the petals like wet mittens on the ground, ground down to a faded sidewalk tapestry.
March
Dickens noted, “When it is summer in the light and winter in the shade.” But the light has eluded us this year, trapped in a box on Fox news. Blanketed with East Coast sleet, west coast floods. We watch a goat, standing along on the roof of a dairy farm, waiting to be rescued, cars floating by. Swollen rivers of doubt topple the last walls of credibility.
“We are sunk,” we say, turning off the television. “We’ve gone to the dogs.”
Simultaneously, our soaked Shepherds press muddy paws on the glass door. The mother dog’s eyes brim with anxiety. She is ombrophobic — March is not her month.
March
The invasion of mold in the carpet, water in the cellar, and ants. The ants erupt from a crack under the dripping window sill. Highly organized, they move four abreast across the counter, boldly. They resemble one million women in the streets of Washington, from an aerial view. The ant parade takes a sudden turn at the liquor cabinet. Drunken ants pile around the simple syrup. I understand. We drank too at the end of our long march.
March
As in, thousands of refugees who approach the border. The king of fools calls upon his reluctant troops to raise arms against them. He labels them The Caravan. As if they come with wagons and horses — settlers to the wild west. Could we offer a homestead, or a land title? No. To share even a jug of water risks arrest.
March
Emily Dickenson welcomed it like a secret lover, locking the door against April. My faith in the poet falters. To prefer March to April — strong evidence of insanity. I beckon April to visit me instead. I promise spring cleaning, fresh bulbs, and tea in the solarium.
March
My dry skin flakes away, words sit rough in my dry throat, and my winter belly creates a mantle over my jeans. The shadows under my eyes deepen to small tar pits. I awake with no spring in my step and my hips protest.
“Still cold and damp,” my joints moan.
“Hush,” I self-chide. “Lift your feet. Onward. We cross the border today. March.”
Joanell Serra
Joanell Serra lives and writes in Northern California. Her first novel, The Vines We Planted, was published by Wido in 2018. An award-winning playwright, novelist and short story writer, she has published stories in Eclectica, Blue Lake Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Poydras Review and elsewhere. In 2015, she won a full scholarship to Santa Barbara’s Writer’s Conference and also attended the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.
April 2019 | fiction
“I’m sorry, your position is being eliminated,” she said, handing me the divorce papers.
“Do you think I’ll just accept this lying down?” I asked.
She smiled, impartially, waiting.
“You’re not really eliminating my position,” I said. “If you were joining a nunnery then, yes, that would be eliminating my position. But you’re not joining a nunnery, are you?”
She continued smiling, always the professional, making a show of patience at the complaining customer.
“No,” I continued. “I didn’t think so. You’re not Ophelia off to the nunnery. I’ve been fired. I think you should reconsider. Sure, I’ve had a few bad performance reviews. Who hasn’t? But my job description changed to something very different from what I signed up for. Surely I deserve a second chance.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ve already begun interviewing applicants to replace you.”
“Ah,” I said. “That explains the little black dress and the alcohol on your breath. But what about our kids?”
“We might have a spot for you as a consultant,” she said.
“Oh, a consultant. Contracting out the heavy lifting, are we? I’ll pay child support. I’ll take the kids to Disneyland or whatever in the summer. I’ll pay the private school tuition. I’ll foot the bill for everything, but I don’t get benefits. Not that much different than marriage, is it? What about a severance package?”
“You’ll have the memories,” she said. “Those are portable.”
I exhaled heavily to show my disdain for her chutzpah and my exasperation at the injustice being shown me. I decided to play hardball.
“What if I sue you for discrimination?” I said, wiggling my eyebrows up and down in a significant and threatening manner. The tension left her face, and I knew I was toast.
“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling. “Faithful husband isn’t a protected class.”
Mike Wilson
Mike Wilson, a writer in Lexington, Kentucky, has had work published in small magazines including Appalachian Heritage, Solidago, The Seventh Wave, The Aurorean and The London Reader and will have work appearing in Fiction Southeast and Edify Fiction.
April 2019 | nonfiction
She sensed when he’d show up. She’d turn her head and look out the window. There he’d be 3 floors down in the parking lot. The man in the hat.
Tall, almost lanky. Black hat – she wasn’t sure the term – Boiler? Brimmed? Felt? Always. Sometimes with a vest. Sometimes a leather jacket. White guy. Indiscriminate age, maybe 28 or 43. Not as old as she was. Not young enough to be self-conscious.
On him the hat worked. For her. There was something about his gait. Self-assured. Never in a rush. Going somewhere. He looked like he could time travel, be comfortable anywhere. The kind of guy who could wear an “I heart my cat” shirt without an ounce of irony or stroll to a piano bar in a dusty western town. He’d need a wider brimmed hat for that.
She wondered where he worked. She realized she was unaware of what the other companies in the building were or did.
She never saw him at the food trucks. She hated the elevator; he struck her as a take-the-stairs guy. She liked the familiarity of the mystery of him a few times a week. Possibility in the guise of routine.
One day she was walking down the stairwell. There he was – she had been right. Up close, she still liked his face. Light eyes. Pale. Maybe intelligent. Short dark hair, at least what she could see around the hat. Could be a banker if he swapped jeans for a suit.
“I like your hat.”
Nice smile, “thanks.”
“Goes with anything; in this climate, you could wear it in any season.”
He agreed then described his summer hat. Made eye contact. Then held the door.
She paused. Almost held out her hand. Introduced herself.
Maybe it would have been what her former father‑in‑law used to call “the Greatest Love Story of All Time.”
Maybe she would have made a new friend.
Maybe they would have grabbed a cup of coffee or a beer.
Maybe they would have talked about cats.
Or ended up naked and sweaty tangled in bed sheets.
Maybe, naked, he would’ve let her try on that hat.
Most likely none of that would happen.
She had good American life by any standard; in her routine she didn’t have was much that was interesting.
And the man in the hat, he was something to ponder.
What if under that hat was a wispy, greying, middle-aged comb-over? What if the intelligence in his eyes was anxiety? What if he was just another IT cog who played golf, drank too much on the weekends, and watched sitcoms after work?
She liked speculating about the man in the hat.
She did not hold out her hand or ask his name.
Instead, she walked through the open door, cold reality making way for fantasy: “thank you. Good night.”
She did not wait for his response, for him to catch up, share details about his life, and maybe walk with her to her car.
Tara Hun-Dorris
Tara Hun-Dorris, a West Virginia native, lives in Raleigh, NC.
