When Tomas boarded the rickety craft
in Mariel, deck swarming with strangers,
no life jackets, sun flirting
with incoming clouds, the teenager
already missed his girlfriend
who’d stayed behind, pregnant with his child.
I’ll bring you both to America, he’d said
—words that still haunt him.
 
Decades later, in a neat bungalow
in South Amboy, Santeria candles burn
in a small shrine surrounded
with flowers. On the stove, pungent
arroz con pollo simmers.
Tomas explains after the boat landed,
he had to give up his passport;
in return, ten bucks and a bus ticket.
 
Stateless, no papers, he’s raised
three children born here--
their mother in prison.
Always one question away
from deportation, but to where?
Castro doesn’t want me either, he says,
and who would care for my children?
 
Tomas supports his family
in a shadow economy--
in his driveway, a derelict car
he’s fixing up to swap.
 
He shows me photos of a son
he’s never met—his first-born--
a captain in the Cuban army
and another photo
of his mother cradling
his dark-eyed granddaughter.
I hope to see my mother
one more time before she dies.
 
*Author Note: In the 1980s, 125,000 Cubans left from the port of Mariel in what was called the Freedom Flotilla.

Author Bio:
Nancy Scott is the managing editor of U.S.1 Worksheets, the journal of the U.S.1 Poets’ Cooperative in New Jersey. She is the author of eight books of poetry: Down to the Quick (Plain View Press, 2007), One Stands Guard, One Sleeps (Plain View Press, 2009), A Siege of Raptors (Finishing Line Press, 2010), Detours & Diversions (Main Street Rag, 2011), On Location (March Street Press, 2011), Midwestern Memories (Aldrich Press, 2013), Running Down Broken Cement (Main Street Rag, 2014) and The Owl Prince (Aldrich Press, 2015). She began writing poetry as a way to record the stories she had heard during more than 35 years as a caseworker for the State of New Jersey and an advocate in the non-profit sector for abused and neglected children and for homeless families. She is also an adoptive parent and a former foster parent. www.nancyscott.net

Today I passed by you in the park
and you had your arms crossed
like you had won some childhood fight
with yesterday.
 
And as I passed you by
we nodded, as if acknowledging some
unspoken pact of hearts now mended.
 
Some unspoken acknowledgement
of how on fire we use to be.
How bright
and fleeting.
 
We were passing stars at one point,
with eyes clear with an in between
of ache and healing.
 
Minds on fire for some future we couldn’t quite see yet,
fluttering towards brilliant infinities,
like moths through rain,
and when I passed you in the park
there we were,
seated in our separate some day.
 
This morning I awoke,
lazy eyed and unable to eat,
as if my sole purpose in life lived between my hips.
 
But as our eyes glazed across each other,
my stomach curled,
and I knew I was not as old as I thought I was.
 
Still my body yearned for the version of us we both knew,
still I hoped for some ancient gods to find me,
still there were eyes drawn on my back to warn the world,
still my breath stayed straying.
 
As I passed you by
there were spaces for air
and moments to breath,
but the rain drops trickled off
like it was in my nature to let them roll away.
 
Like it was meant to be,
that we were once something so big.
So bright
And fleeting.
 
Every heart we felt beating between
clouded walls and burning circles;
witches and saints worshiping dysfunctional gods,
all in between our six legs.
 
Today I passed you in the park
I came running back to the sisters in my stomach
and the lungs on my sleeves while
flying through summer nights.
California born
and bodies broken.
 
We were passing stars at one point,
with eyes clear with an in between
of ache and healing.
 

Author Bio:
Valerie started writing seriously after her father gave her a copy of Fahrenheit 451. She figured it was as good a time as any to start fighting the patriarchy. She has since been published in Lone Cypress Review, Red Cedar Review, Pif Magazine and Scheherazade, among others. She most recently curated a poetry exhibit highlighting National Poetry Awareness Month at her university. Valerie lives in Monterey, California and enjoys drinking stale coffee, marathon viewing The West Wing, and writing…always writing. 

Too much sky, you said, so I shaded it, 
            the firmament become the lid to a 
                        box without windows, dark and hot within 
            like the petals of an orchid steaming 
in the jungle after a rain which then 
            became oppressive, a sauna with no 
                        door. I preferred the jar, you said. At least 
            we could see. Immediately we were 
surrounded by curved glass erasing the 
            edges of everything on the other 
                        side, holes punched in the screw-on top above 
            to give us air. But there is nowhere to 
hide, you said, not wanting to be like that 
            performance artist who lived in a clear
                        box hung on a wall and defecated 
            in public behind a towel with a 
bucket. I added a kitchen matchbox 
            on its side, partially opened and filled 
                        with crayon markings like a forgotten 
            surprise. What shall we do now, you wondered, 
that it’s just us and the stagnant air, the 
            world beyond out of focus, just a range 
                        of shifting blobs changing places, though you 
            were already sitting down with open 
palms, having surrendered to the image.
 
 
Author Bio:
Sandra Kolankiewicz's poems and fiction have appeared widely. Turning Inside Out is available from Black Lawrence Press. This past fall, Finishing Line released The Way You Will Go. In March, When I Fell, a novel with 76 illustrations, was released by Web-e-Books. 

A strange pain 
Minds under strain
Hearts from joy abstain
People turn away from solace in disdain
From helping each other they would simply refrain
Especially when there is no gain 
Family members, like strangers, who pertain
To the same reign,
Drifting apart, each his interests seeks to attain
Each indifference would feign
For opening up to each other would seem insane
When loneliness bites into the heart and brain
When humane bonds start to wane
When the barrenness of a busy life our feelings would suck and drain
We find ourselves stripped of kindness and our innermost glory slain
When friends are no longer friends indeed 
When they only long for us when they are in need
When temptations on our greed would feed 
When we stop at nothing and to our evils we concede 
When our cautionary voice we would not heed 
And our downfall we only speed
When old wounds open and memories would bleed
When we shield ourselves from reliving the pain
But only more pain it would breed
When neither a comforting shoulder nor a welcoming heart our misery would impede
We know that we are set apart by a cliff of hatred and misdeed
Unless we reach out to ourselves and from our demons we are freed 
Unless we shed our egotism along with our greed
Nothing would hinder the unhappy ending and our misfortune would proceed.


Author Bio:
Rim Souissi is an English teacher at the University of Sousse, Tunisia. She finds poetry to be the only form of expression that can achieve both the sublimation of her inner thoughts and feelings as well as the elegance of expression that any person of artistic taste can aspire to. She relishes writing poems whenever she feels a rush of emotions gripping her, whether happy or sad. A bit of a shy and introvert person, she finds it easier to communicate her thoughts through lines of poetry. Though she was, and still is, writing primarily to herself, she lately dallied with the possibility that it would be nice to let other readers get a glimpse of her own world, maybe she will find resonance of her own writings in other people's experiences. She aspires neither for fame nor recognition, just for her words to be laid bare for others to read, think about and maybe identify with.

Your youth was a farm 
Where you met your man
Who came on a horse
And swept you off your feet
Amidst dry fruits 
As you drew water from the well.
Those days the water was sweet
There was something in it
That turned bitter with time
That died in the violence.
You hid with three other girls
In a makeshift enclosure
Below the roof
As hell broke loose;
For four months you were there
Not knowing who will live
And who will die
It must be the worst kind of anticipation
And then 
you were running on the bridge
With family and friends
Some got butchered midway
Some reached the other side
Some jumped in the river and drowned
Some swam across and lived.
You reached the other side,
And so we are in the world today
Finding our semblance in your face
Even though it is wrinkled
Cupping both palms over your ears
So you can hear us
Listening to your story
That never grows old as you do
Loving you more
So we can love you enough

*Note: This poem is dedicated to my Grandmother (Chaiji) who survived the partition of India in 1947.

​
Author Bio:
I hail from the valley of Rishikesh, nestled in the Himalayas in India. Though my love for poetry began with Shakespeare, my city has inspired my creativity. I started writing poems in my engineering college – on the ever-so-dear theme of “unrequited love.” When I started working, I experienced various emotional ups and downs through quest for love, opportunities to travel, meeting new people in new countries, finding my passion, trying to better understand life, working with children, learning a new language and learning to dance. In this period, I wrote poetry extensively. Better yet, I realized that poetry was my way of connecting with people. It was the part of me that came closest to that elusive “purpose” all of us seem to want to find. It was effortless, it was beautiful, it was liberating, and most importantly- it touched people’s lives. For me, the most fulfilling thing about poetry is the sense of belonging it inspires when people discover that someone out there feels the same things they do. 

I have written about a hundred English poems so far and I am looking for publishers for my collection. The themes are as general as love, God, destiny, my travels in India and the US, nature, dance, passion, and as specific as the Delhi gang-rape, a teenage mother, a Turkish cab driver, female infanticide, child labor. It is my sincere hope that my poems make you smile, cry, ponder, wonder, feel, and in that way, touch your life too.

Porn worshipper, you are sick;
Let go of your dick,
And look at what you see:
Women in misery;
Human beings abused.
You are accused, porn user,
of her hurting her and her and her,
of participating in the torture of womankind.
For the vicarious pleasures of your prick.
Kick the habit and fight against it.
Sex can be sensual and exceptional
for both women and men. 
View that; do that!
Escape the porn that deforms our lives,
for sex that thrives and enriches our lives.


Author Bio:
Kathleen Murphey teaches English Department courses and Women in History at Community College of Philadelphia. She has looked at issues surrounding female sexuality in popular culture in her academic writing and is now exploring some of those issues in fiction from short stories to poems. 

In the beginning
Were dark heavens
Until the skies were touched with light
 
In the beginning
Was the earth
Evolving
With living things
 
In the beginning
Was a seed
Planted and fed
By sunlight and rain
 
From the seed
Young roots burrowed
Veins spreading entwining
And reaching upward
 
Breaking above ground
Each stem bud blossom
Mined the air
 
One root stem
Unleashed red roses
Red red red
 
Sister roots
Grew buds opening yellow flowers
Yellow yellow yellow
 
Tunneling farther
New branches held purple blossoms
Purple purple purple
 
Their fragrant breaths
Swirled skyward
Feeding
The stars
 
And there uniting earth
And sky
Was the Rosebush
 
There came a time
When fawns and butterflies
Savored her colors
With their delicate tongues
 
Until
In an approaching thunder
The arrival
Of man
 
Not pleasing to his eye
The Rosebush stood
An aberration of color
An affront to clean greenery
 
He tore at her flowers
Wrenching up stems and branches
 
Drawing inward
The Rosebush
Tapped into her rage
To power the sharpness of thorns
 
Man parried
Fencing her in with iron
Locking her away
As he experimented with final solutions
 
Still the mother root nurtured
Long arms of new blossoms
Stretching
Beyond caged boundaries
 
Once again their fragrant breaths
Swirled skyward
Feeding
The stars
 
There came a time
When children
Enfolded the roses
Carrying them off as their own
 
But soon learned
In their small hands
That the colors and smell they loved
Could not be possessed
 
Men refused the lesson
Breaking in
Cutting deeper
Until she could only
Whisper fragrance
 
Today the Rosebush
Bled of colors
Still lives
 
Underground
The ancient root of all roots
Crawls
Reaching out
 
Is she to be
Abandoned
Stifled
Knowing the foul darkness
Of sure extinction?
 
*Translated from the American Sign Language by Karen Christie
Below is the link to the original ASL poem, "The Rosebush" by Ella Mae Lentz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9biUSeHRlo

Translator Bio:
Karen Christie (name-sign “KC”) grew up in California and was professor of Deaf Cultural Studies and English at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology for 25 years.  Along with Patti Durr, she produced and edited an online multimedia subscription website, The HeART of Deaf Culture:  Literary and Artistic Expressions of Deafhood.Her English poems have been published in Deaf Lit Extravaganza, The Tactile Mind Quarterly, Clerc Scar, and An Introduction to American Deaf Culture.  She has worked with Dorothy M. Wilkins in translating many of these poems into ASL and experimenting with filming techniques (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsqao_69vYs).  She believes the original ASL poem, The Rosebush by Ella Mae Lentz, is one of the most powerful works of contemporary ASL poetry.