Lynn White

Where Are They Now

 

In 1967 I hitch-hiked to Belgrade.

My friend and I would take an overnight train

to stay with our Albanian friends

in what is now Kosovo.

Until then we … Read more

The Poet Spoke for Me

 

The Israeli man I married—and divorced—had parents who were born in Chernivtsi, then in Romania, now in Ukraine. We met on the way to Machu Picchu after he finished … Read more

Songs of the Archipelagos

 For Small Island, Big Song

They come from places you could easily forget,
somewhere between the Pacific and Indian
Oceans: islands where statues gaze at the horizon,
like when the … Read more

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

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