February 2022
Escaped Cobra Owner Jailed
“If we would have just had a lock on the cage… There wasn’t a lock.”
-Lawrence Matl
From an extended stay motel’s breezeway
in Arlington Texas a week after strapping… Read more
Woe Be the Ruddy Bank Robber
Flee, flee but
Will you stay free?
You and your bundles of green
Quickly turned red
As you fled.
Fantasies of glee
In hopes of a shopping spree
Dashed for … Read more
Kiev or Kyiv?
say it in Russian
or in true Ukrainian
the stark fact remains
on the scary brink
of catastrophic bloodshed
we wait for Putin
his fragile ego
breeds ambition to rebuild… Read more
He Skates For Gold
My eyes burn
there’s a lump
in my throat as
Nathan Chen,
in sparkling red
skates for gold
in the land of his ancestors.
His arms spread
like wings
in … Read more
I DON’T SPEAK UKRANIAN
I don’t speak Ukrainian,
no way to read their funnies;
Danila the Demonslayer
or the Red Fury. I can’t read
the letters you sent, Zayda,
in Ukrainian and Yiddish. I’m … Read more
To Be Continued
The news came before I’d entered the first letter
in Wordle; before my first cup of tea, harvested
by the hands of a single mother, praying for a better
life … Read more
ARE YOU COVERED?
A girl in a crimson sweater crossed
my path on my way to the beach.
I offer this girl’s sweater to you.
When I look back at my day only… Read more
Lived Experience
I know what it’s like
to grow up a straight white male
in an intact home
but I do not know
the lived experience of
women, Blacks, gay men,
abuse … Read more
Storm Surge Stories
Historic blizzard on the way. Milk, olive oil, chocolate
bars long gone from grocery shelves. Salt piles wait
in farms beside the turnpike.
Stay indoors. Don’t drive, and
if you … Read more
Not Over COVID-19
First came a headache to fell an ox,
a dull inconvenience to be sure,
followed by cold symptoms ‘round the clock
which … Read more