Poetry – Page 2 – Writers Resist

What True Crime Podcasts Have Taught Me

By Esha Khimji

My husband/boyfriend is most likely to kill me
If he doesn’t and some other man does, people will remember his name and forget mine
Blue Apron is a quick and easy way to cook
I have been socialised to be too polite and accommodating and that’s what will get me killed
I will also be killed if I try to set boundaries
If I date a younger man, he will definitely kill me for my money and I will be unforgivably naive for thinking a younger man found me attractive
Blue Apron is a quick and easy way to cook
If I am murdered, the best I’ll get is pity and the worst I’ll get is too fucked up to mention here
I need to double and triple check my phone is, in fact, connected to my Bluetooth headphones lest I traumatize everyone on my morning commute
If my murderer is halfway decent looking, he will have fans
The police won’t do anything until I am actually dead
The police especially won’t do anything because I am not a pretty white girl
I can listen to more podcasts on the Wondery App
Blue Apron is a quick and easy way to cook

Esha Khimji is a new writer living in Scotland. She holds a degree in Economic and Social History, works a 9-to-5, and writes to stay sane. Her writing focuses on themes of self-preservation in the face of inequality and its interplay with desires that stretch past “one’s lot in life.” Her work has recently appeared in Short Beasts and Steam Ticket: A Third Coast Review.

Photo credit: Photo by Omar Ramadan on Unsplash.

A note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist on our Give a Sawbuck page.

Gathering

(written the day after the 2024 election)

We woke at 2am to a world on fire.

In dark times, I am driven to gather hidden light.

After the shock,
I wove a basket from tears
and texts “I love you” and “are you ok?”
and grit
and tatters of faith.

I lined the basket with a nest for hope,
one by one I placed in treasures
burnished in the ashes:

3am thoughts:
“They don’t get to have my peace,
I reclaim my peace”
which flung me into the moment
of deep gratitude for
our bed,
my sleeping husband,
and the stirring cat.

A Rumi poem
reminding us that where the lowland is, the water goes
and that weeping draws in medicine.

Lodgepole pine seeds, sealed in resin
that can only release in the heat of a fire.
Eucalyptus branches
that can only bud if the bark is burned away.

The masks we are dropping
to say I love you
without hesitation.

Therapists creating spaces for each other
so we can keep working.
Little sparks igniting around the world
fanning flames of connection.

A veteran, betrayed by our own military,
who could still say
“I survived my toughest days, America will too.”

snippets of conversations:
“we are in this together”
“may your shakiness deepen your groundedness”

Torn and folded notebook pages from my husband’s students
telling him how they are:
“I am really scared”
“I am angry”

The maple tree glowing fiery orange
wrapped in fairy lights.
This little oasis does not read the news.

Perhaps this is an arc of history
that I won’t see in my lifetime,
but I can do my part.

gather and listen
and offer my basket.

Take a penny, leave a penny.

Place in your grief,
your wisdom,
your humanity.
Take what you need
connection,
hope,
a metaphor,
Take each other.

I will gather more.

Maureen Kane lives with her family in Bellingham, Washington. She is a mental-health therapist in private practice in Washington and Idaho. Her work has appeared in anthologies and journals. She is a Sue Boynton Poetry Walk Award winner. Her books of poems are The Phoenix Requires Ashes: Poems for the Journey and Mycelium: Poetry of Connection. Her workbook A Guide Back to You: A workbook for exploring who you are and staying true to yourself is a Chanticleer International Books Awards First Place winner.

Photo credit: Photo by Jari Hytönen on Unsplash.

Welcome to Writers Resist the 2025 Summer of Resistance Issue

Wouldn’t it be dandy if this season were a 21st century version of the Summer of Love, but more inclined toward the civil rights movement? An uprising of all ages—of every identity!—leading a powerful return to our generations-long quest for liberty and justice for all; for diversity, equity and inclusion; for a moral commitment to our three branches of government, our pursuit of a true democracy, our vision of what we might be?

Yes, that would be dandy.

This issue launches after the 14 June protests, and we saw you all were on streets across the nation, with oh-so-clever signage, lots of peace and love, and being absolutely dandy.

Thank you—don’t stop!

But first, we’ll take a moment to offer our fondest farewell to René Marzuk, editor extraordinaire and exceptional human being. We’ve been grateful for his presence on the Writers Resist team. We will miss him sorely and lovingly.

A note from René—

In August of 2022 (more than two and a half years ago!), the editors of Writers Resist welcomed me as one of their own. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of reading and considering (mostly) poetry submissions from all over the world. Working closely with Debbie, I read pieces carefully and consistently, trying to find expressions of resistance that took full advantage of the resources available to poetry. As I get ready to step down from my role, I look back with joy to all of the instances in which I found not only what I thought I was looking for, but much, much more.

Early on, I learned that Writers Resist offers a platform for resistance and community that is in turn supported by the generosity and love of those who keep it running. Thank you so much for creating and maintaining this space, K-B, and thank you all for allowing me to be one of you during the last couple of years.

Keep writing the resistance, friends!

Saludos,
René

And now, in between protests, please enjoy the rich contents of our Summer 2025 issue—and join us for Writers Resist Reads, a virtual celebration of this issue, on Saturday 16 August, at 5:00 p.m. PACIFIC. Email WritersResist@gmail.com for the Zoom link.

CONTENTS

Work Trip by Alyssa Curcio

Manure by Robert Delilah

The Neighbor’s Goldfish by Ashley Dryden

Freedom Calls (Commemorating Harriett Tubman’s Promotion to Brigadier General in the State of Maryland) by Ellen Girardeau Kempler

s k i n by Rebecca Havens

Awaiting Harris’ Concession Speech November 6, 2024 by Dotty LeMieux

Standard Safety Recommendations: Revised, 2025 by Ryan McCarty

Stars and Stripes: Registering Voters in the Travis County Jail by Lauren Oertel

Inauguration Day by Linda Parsons

The Age of Unreason by Matthew Sam Prendergast

The Bishop by Lao Rubert

Marked by Fendy Satria Tulodo

Saved by Phyllis Wax

you’re all for autism awareness ’til by Lauren Withrow

Photo credit: K-B Gressitt, taken at Greenwood Rising, a Tulsa, Oklahoma, museum that will “educate Oklahomans and Americans about the [1921] Race Massacre and its impact on the state and Nation, remember its victims and survivors, and create an environment conducive to fostering sustainable entrepreneurship and heritage tourism within the Greenwood District specifically, and North Tulsa generally.”

Work Trip

By Alyssa Curcio

Crisply folded sheets,
strange faces—
the warm bite of Cognac
against my teeth at the hotel bar—
I must admit,
it is all rather romantic.
I’ve been sent to California
(the client needs us!)
and I’ve left my life,
excuse me, my wife,
at home.

I might just understand,
as I kiss a cigarette
on the balcony of my hotel room,
why The Men fought so hard
(they really did try!)
to keep this world from us.
The old boys club,
the working hard
(read: playing hard). . .

I might just jump ship
and join them
in their indignation that
“some things are just sacred!”
Except that
after a drink
(maybe even before)
their wandering hands
would find my thighs
beneath the table
and make me wish
that I was anywhere
but California.

Alyssa Curcio (she/her) is a reproductive justice activist and lawyer whose advocacy has been covered by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and NBC News. Her poetry has been featured in Screen Door Review and Poem Alone. A Virginia native, Alyssa currently lives in New York City.

Photo credit: ChrisGoldNY via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Freedom Calls (Commemorating Harriet Tubman’s Promotion to Brigadier General in the State of Maryland)

By Ellen Girardeau Kempler

Flying camouflaged
after nightfall, Harriet Tubman
mimicked the barred owl’s call,
signaling safety to fugitives
shadowed in darkness,
transmitting hope like
a firefly in the forest.

It’s no wonder
she chose to travel on Sunday—
the master’s day of rest—
when no press would post
wanted notices for runaways.

Following the North Star, she listened
for God’s guiding voice, led followers
through Maryland and Delaware
to Philadelphia—then up to New York,
singing, “I’m on My Way to Canada”
as they crossed the Niagara.

Through it all, she repeated
this refrain: “If you are tired, keep going.
If you are scared, keep going. If you are hungry,
keep going. To reach freedom, follow me.”

With every journey, she doubled back—
rescuing 70 souls in 13 trips. The Underground
Railroad fueled these escapes—hiding fugitives
by day, so they could fly by night.

In these precariously United States of 2024,
the General finally received her rank
for service to the Union
in our only civil war.

These anxious nights, whenever I hear
the owls’ questioning whoos or catch
the whoosh of swooping wings,
I think of Harriet, marshalling her troops.

Ellen Girardeau Kempler’s award-winning poems have been widely published in Wild Roof Journal, Mindful Poetry Anthology, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Narrative Northeast, Writers Resist, Phoenix Rising Review, Gold Man Review, Orbis International Poetry Quarterly and many other small presses and anthologies. Her first chapbook is “Thirty Views of a Changing World,” (Finishing Line Press 2017). Her second chapbook, “Fire in My Head / Flame in My Heart: Poems for the Pyrocene,” is forthcoming (Kelsay Books 2025).

Photo credit: David Hoffman‘s photograph of Aaron Douglas’ painting, Harriet Tubman, via a Creative Commons license.

Awaiting Harris’ Concession Speech November 6, 2024

By Dotty LeMieux

A woman adjusts the flags lining the stage
just so, as if perfectly draped flags
can protect us from the ignominy
of the next four years.

On stage, the flags wilt
despite folding, tucking,
crimping.

A young man in the crowd raises
his iPhone high above his head,
its flashlight beaming out.
With his other hand he holds
a plastic water bottle
on top of the phone,
a pale tribute
to a lost Lady Liberty.

While a nation holds
its ragged breath,
polar ice melts,
oceans die,
billionaires increase
their wealth and power.

In Texas, Oklahoma,
Georgia, Indiana—
Women bleed
in parking lots,
on hospital gurneys,
waiting—

Waiting

still waiting

My pronouns are she, her, hers. I often write what might be called political or topical poetry. Much of it is in my five chapbooks, three long out of print, but the most recent are Henceforth I Ask Not Good Fortune from Finishing Line Press, 2021, and Viruses, Guns and War from Main Street Rag Press, 2023. My work has appeared in several anthologies, Writers Resist, Gyroscope, Rise Up Review, Poetry and Covid, MacQueens Quinterly and more. I live in northern California with my husband and two active dogs.

Photo credit: Adam Fagen via a Creative Commons license.

Standard Safety Recommendations: Revised, 2025

By Ryan McCarty

Honesty may no longer be the best
policy, depending on who’s asking.
And sometimes accepting a ride
from strangers is the safest way home.
Do not secure your own mask
before helping children or others.
Listen to your body, though.
Carrying heavy weight at arm’s length
can stagger you. Bent knees alone
will not be enough to do all the lifting.
Hold what needs to be picked up
close to your chest. Share warmth
with people who are in the cold.
If you smell smoke, do not wedge
a wet towel under the door. Listen
for coughing and the scuff of bodies
looking for fresh air. Always let them in.
It is still better to be safe than sorry,
because jails and mass graves
will never be emptied by apologies.

Ryan McCarty is a writer and teacher, living in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where the poems walk around talking to each other and doing the good work, even though it seems like there’s more to do every day. His writing has appeared recently in places like Abandoned Mine, Blue Collar Review, Door is a Jar, Left Voice, Michigan Quarterly Online, Rattle Poets Respond, and Trailer Park Quarterly. He also writes at ryanmccarty.substack.com.

Photo credit: Wordshore via a Creative Commons licsense.

Stars and Stripes: Registering Voters in the Travis County Jail

By Lauren Oertel

We see stars in their eyes—the legal technicality
allows them to imagine voting for the first time.

Then the stars fade
like the overwashed
thick stripes on their shirts.

Heavy doors buzz, razor wire-topped pathways
snake between buildings.

Guards mutter Make America Great Again
when they see our clipboards and registration forms.

It’s the shower shoes—thin, terracotta-colored,
plastic sandals, barely protected feet.

We might expect old glory to save us.
Save us from this man with scars on his face
that run not as deep as the ones on his heart.

Save us from that man whose injured hand
shakes as he signs his name.

Are they not here in the name of my protection?

Back out to face the wall, arms up, legs spread,
brace for the unwelcome hands. Back into cells.

Lauren Oertel is a community organizer and passionate supporter of authors, books, writing communities, and local bookstores. Her work has been published in The Ravens Perch, Evening Street Review, Steam Ticket, The Bluebird Word, The Sun Magazine, and more. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her partner Orlando and their tuxedo cat Apollonia.

Photo credit DonkeyHotey via a Creative Commons license.

Inauguration Day

By Linda Parsons

                    I’m bleeding
                              I’m bleeding
          on the sheet and pillow    not
my monthlies        so many moons    gone.
          On the sheet   a red thread
                     unraveled
in sleep    stain hardened    to rub and soap.
                              I bleed
like a girl   the coldest winter    I’ve known
          splits    skin       streaks
my pillow   sheet    pulled to my chin.
                    I’m bleeding
for my daughters    and granddaughters
                    soft bodies
          sold in the marketplace
                              the coldest coin
          I’ve known.   All of us
                    dying
                              in moons to come
sheets pulled    to our chins    bloodied red.
          Won’t someone    breathe
                    soft    on our skin
          lift stains    from winter’s cold
                    bed?   I cannot bear
               the weight   my skin    sacrificial
          torn loose   these longest    of nights.
                    Daughters, granddaughters,
bear this    dark day.    Rage    rage    curse
          the draining   of light.
                              I bleed
          for this blue and red
                    gash of country, for the drums
                              beating past
     Lincoln’s feet.   Let the streets    run
with   girls   still believing   let
                    their birthright
          burn    white heat.
                    Only bright day
will wash   our bodies    past broken
          belief    blood    in its mercy
rubbed clean.    Only then   will we    break
          this cold bargain,
                              until then
                    you will see
          how I bleed.

Poet, playwright, essayist, and editor, Linda Parsons is the poetry editor for Madville Publishing and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. She is published in such journals as The Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, Terrain, The Chattahoochee Review, Shenandoah, and many others. Her sixth collection is Valediction: Poems and Prose. Five of her plays have been produced by Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Photo by Haberdoedas on Unsplash.

The Bishop

By Lao Rubert

–for the Right Reverends Mariann Budde, Anne Hodges-Copple and Scott Benhase

Before dawn she packs her briefcase
swivels its four gliding, revolving wheels
and marches through the door
in puffy down, long underwear
beneath her slacks. Garment bag
slung over her shoulder. Snow boots
grip black ice as she clicks
the car door open, slides in.
She arrives early, in time for the thick
El Salvadoran coffee Ana brews.
She has a speech to make.

Inside the drafty cathedral she dares
to lay a single word upon a silver tray.
Perhaps it is the audacity that offends
as she declares Mercy, and then again,
Have mercy, draping the phrase
like a string of pearls around his neck.
Disgraceful, insulting, fear-mongering,
he yelps, his power pricked.
Supplicants jeer, the street’s upended.
He stays up late, combats the words,
demands a mea culpa be extended.

There have been death threats, she smiles.
They’d like to see me dead.
No apologies. Instead, she packs her robes,
rochet and chimere, white and scarlet,
alongside her embroidered black tippet.
Outside, the traffic roars and wails.
Beggars make their afternoon requests
and the Bishop counts the miles that she must go
as tributes mix with calls for her demise.
Some say she’s blessed.

Lao Rubert lives in Durham, North Carolina. Her poems have appeared – or will appear – in Atlanta Review, Barzakh, Collateral, Mantis, Mom Egg Review, Muleskinner, Poetry East, The Avenue, The Marbled Sigh, Wordpeace, Writers Resist and elsewhere. Rubert has spent a career working to reform the criminal justice system.

Photo Credit: Steve Robbins via a Creative Commons license.

Saved

By Phyllis Wax

This time
will it be an ark
or a spaceship
when God decides
to cleanse the earth?

When rising oceans
submerge the coasts
and fire, flood and wind
ravage the rest,

when wars and wickedness
are rampant, when compassion
collides with greed

who will gather their loved ones
to climb aboard—

the righteous
or the rich?

Phyllis Wax writes on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI. She grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, and is distressed by what is going on there these days. Her poetry has appeared in many publications, including Writers Resist, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rise Up Review, Spillway, Peacock Journal, Gyroscope Review, Wordpeace, New Verse News, Mobius, Your Daily Poem.

Photo credit: jaci XIII via a Creative Commons license.

you’re all for autism acceptance ’til

By Lauren Withrow

Lauren Withrow is an autistic disability advocate, mother of two autistic children, diverse writer, TikTok creator (@thegirlbehindthe_mask_), and Lead Registered Behavior Technician. Her poetic writing explores themes of autism, identity, love, and justice drawn from personal and professional experience.

Two Poems by Steph Sundermann-Zinger

What if instead of the inauguration, I wrote about birds?

The rabble of small brown ones
beneath the feeder — the ones we can never
tell apart? Or the chickadees,
sacking away sunflower hearts against
a long, bleak season? Even now, the woodpecker
beats a concussive staccato, war drum
for the bruise-blue crows mobbing
to protect their nests, while the hawk preens
his tawny feathers on the garden wall,
indifferent. The mourning dove offers
a dogged lament, every day the same
bewildered grief. And always the cardinal,
blood-bright, black-masked, attacking
his own reflection in every shining thing.

Living Queer in the Days After the Election

The barn swallows are tucked into night’s shallow pockets,
morning song already brewing in their throats. Their familiar chorus
will start again tomorrow, nothing changing, even as the males
slaughter their neighbor’s nestlings, shoving their flightless bodies
to the ground. When frightened, octopuses close themselves
into coconut shells. They practice, I tell my wife after the votes
have been counted, when she’s too afraid to sleep. I show her a video,
an octopus dragging crude armor beneath its tender belly, contracting
into it again and again, dress rehearsal for disaster. My daughter hides
under her teacher’s desk during blackout drills. It’s probably the safest place,
she says, but there’s only room for one. A lot of kids just pile up
in the corners. I think about asking her to make space for another child,
but don’t. Survival is my body’s private anthem now, breath’s wild melody,
stubborn drum of my heart clenching and unclenching, like a fist.

Steph Sundermann-Zinger (they/she) is a queer poet living and writing in the Baltimore area. Their work explores themes of identity, relationship, and connection with the natural world, and has appeared or is forthcoming in The Avenue, Blue Unicorn, Little Patuxent Review, Lines + Stars, Literary Mama, Split Rock Review, and other journals. She is a graduate of the University of Baltimore’s MFA program and the 2023 recipient of the Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize. They were a fall 2024 Writer in Residence for Yellow Arrow Publishing. Find her online at stephwritespoems.com.

Photo credit: “Evening Mourning Doves” by briandjan607 via a Creative Commons license.

Finger Banging Slutty Young Woman

By Caiti Quatmann

This poem contains themes and explicit descriptions of trauma,
including sexual violence, misogyny, and systemic oppression.
Readers are encouraged to approach with care.

When you’re the first girl in third grade
that has to wear a bra (the same year
that spice girls release their first album),
the boys will start calling you “Slutty Spice.”

& the next year, when you get your first period
(well before the health teacher comes in
to even tell you what it is, so your mom finds
you crying in the bathroom with blood
on your hands, as you ask her, am I dying?)
your name will just become “Slut.”

& by fifth grade (as you cry each night
in the bath from growing pains) when
you’re towering over every boy who won’t
start growing ‘til seventh grade,
the world will call you a young woman.

& it will tell you:
You look so grown up.
You should be a model.

& men will whisper as you walk past
the restaurant bar, following the hostess
& your family through a maze of tables
& chairs, “Look at the tits on that one.”

& your Mother, during
appetizers, will tell you,
“I would have killed
for boobs like that.”

& in the summer before sixth grade,
you’ll ride bikes with your childhood friend
to the playground at school. It’s Saturday,
so no one is there, until her older
boyfriend appears with his friend.

& when she rides off with her boyfriend,
while you’re crawling through the tubes,
his friend will slide in next to you.

& as he slobbers on your lips
& shoves his hand down your shorts,
you’ll stiffen & think about
the texture of plastic, & how the blue
is faded where the sun has bleached it.

& after labor day, when you
start middle school, you will learn
this boy has a sister in eighth grade
who told everyone to call you “finger bang.”

& in seventh grade when your friend tells you
how the math teacher (who is also your volleyball coach)
seems to call on you all the time & asks you
to walk up to the chalkboard,

& that he won’t stop looking
at your chest the whole time—
you don’t notice.

& because you’ve become so familiar with
the discomfort of men’s (& boy’s) attention,
you can’t even point to it as the reason
for the omnipresent tightness in your chest

& lump in your throat that grows bigger
& bigger each day. You’ve been desensitized
to the male gaze, learned that your body
is always available for viewing & comment.

& when you go to practice that evening,
you wear three extra sports bras
to make yourself smaller.

& in eighth grade when your friend
asks you what a blowjob tastes like
you don’t wonder why she would ask you,
why she would think you know
(you don’t actually know).

& because you’re “a Finger
Banging Slutty Young Woman,”
you explain it the best way you can.

And you tell her it tastes sweet
(because Ask Jeeves told you that
semen contains a high amount of fructose).

Caiti Quatmann (she/her) is a disabled poet, writer, author of the chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus) and Editor-in-Chief for HNDL Mag. Her poetry and personal essays have been published by manywor(l)ds, Samfiftyfive, Thread LitMag and others. Caiti lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri. Find her online @CaitiTalks.

Photo credit: “MacArthur Park” by Amy the Nurse via a Creative Commons license.

The Sea Gazelle

By Bänoo Zan

For Ahoo Daryaei¹

My body—my voice—

Time is out of joint
in this sea of forced hijabs

I wear a hoodie sweater to campus
To force me to wear a hijab
the Sharia militiamen rip it to shreds

I show you whose body this is—I roar—
Now that my torso is exposed—
I get out of my pants, too—

I announce independence—
walk down the street—tall as cypress—
My body is not my shame—

My arrest is a bloody scream
Plainclothes men beat me up—
bang my head against a car
and throw me inside—
The tires leave a trail of red

I am detained in a “psychiatric” ward
The only people with visitation rights
are the Brigadier General of the Disciplinary Force²
Intelligence agents,

and pretend doctors who administer drugs
to drive me to insanity, confession,
and the insanity of confession

Waves besiege my protest
Pain pierces me as rape

I am restrained after attempts to escape—

I am a tempest in
a sea of subjugated resolves—

No ceasefire—between tyranny and freedom—

My body—is my weapon—

I am leaping out of waves

Bänoo Zan is a poet, translator, essayist, and poetry curator, with over 300 published pieces and three books including Songs of Exile and Letters to My Father. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Canada’s most diverse and brave poetry open mic series (inception 2012). It is a brave space that bridges the gap between communities of poets from different ethnicities, nationalities, religions (or lack thereof), ages, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, poetic styles, voices, and visions. Bänoo, along with Cy Strom, is the co-editor of the anthology: Woman Life Freedom: Poems for the Iranian Revolution.

Photo credit: Photoholgic on Unsplash.

Ahoo Daryaei, nicknamed “the science-research girl,” is a PhD student in French Literature at the Islamic Azad (Free) University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran. On November 2, 2024, security forces tore her clothes to teach her that she should dress modestly. She then stripped to her underwear and was arrested by plainclothes forces and detained and held against her will at a “psychiatric” hospital. “The sea gazelle” is a translation of her name: “ahoo” is gazelle and “darya” is the sea in Persian. ↩︎
FARAJA, acronym for the Disciplinary Force of the Islamic Republic of Iran ↩︎

Ode to America, November 6, 2024

By Joanne Durham

Oh America, I desperately want
to praise you, but even this poem
has begun wrong, like you began
wrong. How easily you claimed
the name of two continents,
the lands of other peoples. Here
you are, states untied, no belt
of decency holding them together,
all the rot of unentitled claims
shredding your fraying fabric.

Lying in bed before dawn, I fight
that rot creeping through my lungs.
I do not want to suffocate,
least of all from my own faltering
breath. So I walk out onto the deck
of this ocean-facing place
I call home. The stars are still the same,
Orion’s belt shines on, so close
to the Equator everyone on earth
can see it. Some woman like me
will stand beneath it as the sun shadows
away from her, in China, Ghana,
Greece, and marvel
at the three giant stars that hold
this belt secure. In ancient myths
those heavenly bodies make a bridge
to the world of souls. Few of us know
their names, but we know connection,
perhaps that is all we need to know—

The fog thickens as the sun rises,
even the sky doesn’t want to witness
the mayhem below. We are left
to navigate by our own constellations,
what shines true in our fragile lives.
I walk down to the beach, search
for a shark tooth, a reminder
of how old this earth is, how much
it has weathered.

Joanne Durham is the author of To Drink from a Wider Bowl, winner of the Sinclair Poetry Prize (Evening Street Press 2022) and the chapbook, On Shifting Shoals (Kelsay Books 2023). Her poetry appears in Poetry South, Vox Populi, CALYX, NC Literary Review and numerous other journals and anthologies. She lives on the North Carolina coast, with the ocean as her backyard and muse. Visist her website at www.joannedurham.com.

Photo credit: Yuriy Totopin via a Creative Commons license.

The Social Contract

By Kelly Fordon

I’ve been thinking about Irish wakes—
what my aunt’s must have been like—
19—killed by her drunk boyfriend
who slammed into a light pole.
For years afterward, my grandfather
ran into the boy around town.
My grandparents believed he would pay—
if not in this lifetime, in the next.
But I heard it nearly drove
my grandfather mad to see his face.
Those were the days before we all decided
drinking and driving is dumb,
a collective decision after so much loss.
What we had tolerated before,
we could no longer abide.
Irish wakes always took place
in the deceased’s home.
Back in those days
they covered the mirrors
so the soul wouldn’t float off
into the nether world instead
of zooming straight up to heaven.
The vigil lasted all night.
The men lit their cigarettes
to ward off the evil spirits.
That’s another thing
we used to sanction—
several of my family members
went up in smoke.
It takes a village, they say.
What I happen to believe
matters little without you
on board. Otherwise, how
would we even set the speed limit?
I was working one day
behind the circulation desk
and a man walked in
with a Glock strapped to his chest.
Who he was,
what he intended to do,
we had no idea.
He was exercising
his rights, and it made me think
about my aunt flying through the windshield,
my uncle hacking up a lung,
bombed-out hospitals,
preemies huddled together
in shoe boxes,
kids who were just having fun
at a music festival,
my son cowering
in his MSU apartment,
a killer on the loose.
His grade school friend, who
didn’t make it through that night.
Back when I was in high school
we didn’t know boys were supposed
to stop when we said stop.
If we’d banded together,
if we’d called out the bystanders,
if we’d agreed that we deserved better,
that what was happening
was really, really shitty, maybe
we could have shut it down.
Maybe we could have changed
everything.

Kelly Fordon’s latest short story collection, I Have the Answer (Wayne State University Press, 2020), was chosen as a Midwest Book Award Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. Her 2016 Michigan Notable Book, Garden for the Blind (WSUP), was an INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, an Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist. Her first full-length poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House (Kattywompus Press, 2019), was an Eyelands International Prize Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. It was later adapted into a play by Robin Martin and published in The Kenyon Review Online. Her new poetry collection, What Trammels the Heart, will be published by SFASUPress in 2025. She is the author of three award-winning poetry chapbooks and has received a Best of the Net Award and Pushcart Prize nominations in three different genres. She teaches at Springfed Arts in Detroit and online, where she runs a fiction podcast called “Let’s Deconstruct a Story.”

Photo credit: Marc Nozell via a Creative Commons license.

Welcome to Writers Resist the Winter 2025 Issue

Whether you’re still in recovery or planning your resistance against the incoming regime, there’s plenty of common ground in this the Winter 2025 issue of Writers Resist. Enjoy the art, poetry and prose and then join us for our virtual Writers Resist Reads, Saturday 15 February 2025, at 5:00 p.m. Pacific. Just email for the Zoom link: writersresist@gmail.com.

In this issue:

Mary Brancaccio “This little piece of heaven“

Salena Casha “In This Version, Cancer Is a Woman“

Karen Crawford “You Don’t Run“

Jennifer Freed “Upon Learning, in a Report on the Footage of a Sheriff’s Deputy Shooting Sonya Massey to Death in Her Kitchen, of Massey’s First Words to the Deputy“

Jennifer Karp “Postcards from the Valley of the Moon“

Flavian Mark Lupinetti “Trigger Warning“

M.R. Mandell “Gen X Girls Ghazal“

Melissa McEver Huckabay “Why I Fight for Texas Even Though Everyone Says We Should Move“

Livia Meneghin “What should be free“

Ria Raj “kaala; kala“

Ash Reynolds “Uprooted/Planted“

Sheree Shatsky “Judged“

Beulah Vega “About Those Census Checkboxes“

Laura Grace Weldon “Election Day Facebook Exchange“

Amritha York “mmiwg“

Photo by K-B Gressitt

Why I Fight for Texas Even Though Everyone Says We Should Move

By Melissa McEver Huckabay

Sapphire flowers on the roadside.
Mountain laurels that smell like grapes.
Yellow sulphurs that flit among blooms.
Breakfast tacos and tiny salsa cups.
Muddy bayous that swallow your feet.
Pine trees that touch the sun.
Whataburger lines circling the block.
Dr. Pepper. Shiner. Blue Bell.
Sticky shirt by 8 a.m. Sunburn by 10.
Summers hiding in air conditioning.
Wearing shorts on Halloween.
Orange-lighted towers and cowboy hats.
Ferris wheels in front of the livestock show.
Two-stepping and scuffling boots.
Walks on Town Lake when it was Town Lake.
Oak-tree canopy on Rice Boulevard.
Peacocks squealing in Mayfield Park.
Coconut shrimp on South Padre Island.
Charro Days in Brownsville.
Marching bands and Friday night lights.
Stands selling strawberries, peaches.
Neighbors who took us for pony rides.
Picking dewberries on the side of the road.
My hometown before the Trump signs.
Believing hearts can change.
My mother, my grandfather,
my grandmother, my great-grandmother.
My father, even though he left.
My stepfather, who never left.
The blood that calls me here. Even though. Even though.

Melissa McEver Huckabay has an MFA in poetry from Texas State University and teaches writing at University of Houston-Downtown. Her poetry has appeared in SWWIM, Poetry South, Phoebe Journal, Thimble Literary Magazine, Sweet: A Literary Confection, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in Minnesota Review. Her short fiction has won the Spider’s Web Flash Fiction Prize from Spider Road Press. She was a 2023 Contributor to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Photograph by RobinJP via a CreativeCommons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Trigger Warning

By Flavian Mark Lupinetti

Never before has my hospital seen
such dismembered torsos and pulverized brains,
results of a shooting with an AR-15.

The speed of a bullet from an AR-15
creates cavitation through muscles and veins.
A shot to the shoulder can rupture the spleen.

All of our doctors and nurses convene,
yet it’s futile to treat what are really remains,
these gobbets of protoplasm rendered obscene.

It distresses us we cannot follow routine—
bring a halt to the hemorrhage, alleviate pains—
but to rush to the OR dishonest. I mean,

there’s nothing to save after seeing this scene.
Kids of a country where the gun owner reigns,
doomed never forever to reach age thirteen.

Of the lethalmost species of killing machine—
bazookas, gas, napalm, presidential campaigns—
accessorized with a 55-round magazine,
nothing compares to the AR-15.

Flavian Mark Lupinetti, a poet, fiction writer, and cardiac surgeon, received his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His poems and stories have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Cutthroat, december, Redivider, and ZYZZYVA. Mark’s chapbook, The Pronunciation Part, will be published by The Poetry Box in 2025. Mark lives in New Mexico.

Photograph by clappstar via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.