Writing is an act of resistance
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The In-Between
Immigration, ICE, Krista Lee Hanson, Renée Nicole Good, On Learning to Dissect a Fetal Pig, Renee Nicole Macklin, ICE murder, PoetryBy Krista Lee Hanson For Renée Nicole Good You said your soul lived, perhaps,in-between your pancreas & large intestine. My soul has been skittish,these days, hiding, perhapsin-between my cranium &cervical spine, under hunched shouldersbracing for the next disaster, but your violentmurder,the sudden snuffing of your life,your mother-poet light, the horror of it has shaken me,rattled…
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The Law
By Anne Reiner For Alex Pretti we’re all under the same lawNewton’s thirdwhere forces always come in pairs tear gas roars at a citizena citizen roars back with anequal and opposite forceof a protest a knee pushes againsta neck a neckpushes back with an equal and opposite force of a movement an agent of the state shootsa bullet a bullet a bullet a…
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The Boy
By Raima Larter The boy grasps the rope, swings out over the river whooping, lets go, splashes, laughs. The light is a misty green and it all seems a dream, a time that never was. The crowds march in subzero cold, breath freezing in nostrils, shoes squeaking on frozen snow as booted troops watch from…
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Fog of War
By Laura Buxbaum I’ve been in a fog before – sailing ghostly quiet,listening for the buoy’s clang, blowinga feeble horn to warn the ferry or the lobstermanour small vessel is near, please don’t hurt us. Brain fog, too – what’s the word I’m looking for? Whoare you, do I know you, did our childrengo to…
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How to Ignite Polite Fires
By Em Arata-Berkel WARNING!Only burn on a level, fire-resistant surface.Burn with an extinguisher in sight.Keep away from flammable objects.Keep away from children, open windows, or heavily trafficked areas. BURNING INSTRUCTIONSAcknowledge the aspirations of a long wick, thentrim to a quarter inch before lighting.Savor the experience.Enjoy notes of smoke, wet concrete, pepper spray,and what you—the rugged…
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In the Unlikely Event
Narrative nonfiction, gun control, NRA, school shootings, mass shootings, AR-15, Rebecca Watkins, America’s RifleBy Rebecca Watkins Rebecca Watkins holds an MFA in poetry and an MSed from the City University of New York. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Ginosko Literary Journal, the Quartet Journal, Hole in the Head Review, the Amethyst Review and the Amaranth Journal among other literary journals. Her creative nonfiction has been shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s Open…
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While Europe Was Burning by Tytti Heikkinen
Artist’s Statement The creation of this work was influenced by the changed situation in Europe. It was hard to believe that a war could still break out here in the 2020s. All of that was supposed to be over, history was not meant to repeat itself anymore. The fact that it did is still difficult…
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Someone Will Be Right With You
By Laura Grace Weldon Even the book I bring is not enoughto keep me from watching the man taskedwith patient intake. He may be new to the jobor simply struggle with what’s required to cope in a time when everyone seems angry. Whatever mysterious power transfers emotion is at work when I sign in at his window. I…
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Fruit Flies
By Deborrah Corr They drone around the now browned bananas I forgot to eat when they were fresh and yellow. Air-born things with wings too tiny to be seen, black dots that can’t be snatched from the air or smashed against the window, out of which I can see the Trump flag flying from a house down the street.…