Mike Maggio

Petition								
by Ann Koshel van Buren

I felt the strike push straight through my body until
it was stopped by my spine.
My body which had known its borders lost its center as
the impact filled my solar plexus, pressing lungs and heart.

The force sits, a sharp point on my vertebrae, a creeping aura.
It dissipates through every space like a cluster bomb 
between my ribs. I hadn’t prepared myself for what hit me 
so I don’t know how to reach inside and pull it out. Even a surgeon 
with the most precise knife would find nothing there.
No one is trained to find the emptiness in what the blow displaced.
 
But I have strength enough for this task.
The task of lifting my head as slowly as it seems the earth lifts the sun 
though in actuality it’s spinning. Standing still and upright, I have 
strength in my eyes, tongue, belly, feet and hands—strength
for those with no strength— Just tell me
how to lift the weight, all the weight, heavy as it is.

Copyright 2023 by Ann Koshel van Buren

Ann van Buren is a writer, teacher, librarian and advocate for peace.

I wish I knew less of history
by Arlene Wohl 

I wish I knew less of history
how the spokes of its wheel keep
turning always returning to the same
sorry place where the snake is reminded
to hiss and snivel whenever the spoke
lands on its worn sore spot.

The wheel wobbles along across time
the path’s markings unclear, it wants
to make headway, go forward, but finds
itself circling back to places familiar
to linger for a while in hateful terrain,
and all because it lost its way, again.

The journey interrupted by marchers
with slogans, sirens warning to shelter,
signs urging death to the other, scenes
too despicable to describe; the wheel
now stuck in mud of crumbling decorum
it can’t pry itself loose from the ruin and rot.

 But the wheel of history cannot stop for long
and sooner or later reason is restored, the search
for sanity is found; the wheel dusts itself off
from dried bloodshed to move on, but memories
remain and the path’s markings toward  the future
are confusing, some pointing here, others there.

Copyright 2023 by Arlene Wohl 

Arlene Wohl has always been drawn to both cloth and words.As a weaver she would tell stories that expressed color, texture and feeling. Now she does the same with her poems by weaving words together which she hopes will resonate in much the same way as carefully executed handwovens do. The similarity in the creative process led to her recently completed manuscript of ekphrastic poems in which fiber and words tell the same story in different ways.

Silence is a Prayerful Sound: A Sestina
by Shelli Rottschafer 

We are here with sorrowful eyes and they are there. 						
Sun rose early and came 									
with a message no 										
one expected. That kind of sound 								
rings havoc upon swollen eardrums until 							
it deadens in mourning. 									

Shadow dissipates from east to west. Morning 							
dew glistens on recently mowed grass. Their 							
imported Russian Olive tree until 								
only a week before came 									
invasively into their garden.  Its windchimes in sound- 				
less branches, doves’ nest not 							

warmed overnight. Eggs no 							
longer breathe through blue tinted shell. Morning’s 						
awkward rest aches for the sound 							
of cooing doves, of twinkling chime. There 							
along the quieted street out front came 								
a mechanical churning. Dogs let loose in desperation, hid until 					

that chain promised something other than their fear.  Until 					
today resentments changed no- 									
thing, but empty words.  Promises came 								
with broken treaty, broken frontiers.  Broken this morning 				
the eggs lay in smithereens upon that green grass. There 						
the dog cowers in their approach, wondering what that sound 					

brings next.  Is it the sound 									
of their name called until 									
voice is hoarse?  Or is there 									
only the wailing of sirens, wailing of children.  No 						
the olive branch is not lofted in offering.  Noah’s morning 					
prayer, looking out from Mount Ararat came 							

bearing no covenant of resilience.  Rainbow came 						
and went.  Echoes are the sound								 	
murmured in question.  Mornings 								
are supposed to provide relief.  Until 								
a new day rises, until the anchor of hatred dislodges. No 						
compromises will be met. And Noah’s boat will drift out there, into infinity		 	
Silence is a prayerful sound
It came drifting upon this strange morning
And no, the world doesn’t want to know until we’re there.

Copyright 2023 by Shelli Rottschafer 

Shelli Rottschafer completed her doctorate from the University of New Mexico in 2005 in Latin American Contemporary Literature.  From 2006 until 2023 Rottschafer taught at a small liberal arts college in Grand Rapids, MI as a Professor of Spanish.  Her academic research focuses on Latinx, Chicanx, and Indigenous American Literatures as well as Eco-criticism and Nature Writing.  Summer 2023 Shelli followed her passion and returned to graduate school to begin her Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Poetry at Western Colorado University in Gunnison, Colorado.

Shelli’s wanderlust draws her back to her querido Nuevo México where she explores the trails with her partner, photographer Daniel Combs, and their Great Pyrenees-Border Collie rescue puppy. Her heart belongs to the sunsets reflected upon the Sangre de Cristo mountain range and shadowed in el Río Grande. Together they reside in Louisville, Colorado and El Prado, Nuevo México.

The Palestinian Boy in Plainfield, Illinois
by Rebecca Leet

The skin I notice first
and the eye of my heart keeps returning there

milk chocolate and velvety   
like a Hershey bar melted in the summer sun 
  
with softness specific to those 
who have not lived long enough to sow seeds of hate

a six-year-old’s skin that will never know acne or manly stubble 
a lover’s lips or the caress of his own baby’s cheek.
 
Did the wizened man who screamed Muslims must die
see the innocence as he stabbed him 26 times? 

As he erased the sweet life and some of the hope 
I carry for the world.

Copyright 2023 by Rebecca Leeet

Rebecca Leet began her career as a newspaper reporter in Washington, DC and learned there that large numbers can numb a person to the human impact of news, while the story of a single person can pierce the numbness and bring home the horror. She has been published in more than 20 journals and sites and her book Living With The Doors Wide Open (Mercury HeartLink) came out in 2018