Audrey Howitt

I watch footage when it’s available.
White men in masks take you, and you go.
What else can you do in a country
where you thought you could speak out?

If I could,
I would form keys from the fingers of your captors,
I would cry on the spot they took you,
I would pin your image, your name, your breath
to any place, any person who can keep you safe.

You didn’t bargain for this.
None of us did.

Your mothers
fathers
sisters
brothers
nieces
nephews, so like mine,
call out your name to the wind,
ask God, Allah, Mohamed, anyone, everyone
to keep you safe
from those who would erase you.

You have landed in the maw
without knowing it.

I would take your hand,
lead you home to the hearts
that hold you before it is too late.

For you.
For all of us.

Audrey Howitt lives and writes poetry in the San Francisco Bay Area. When not writing, she sings opera and teaches voice. She is also a licensed attorney and a licensed marriage and family therapist. Ms. Howitt has been published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Washington Square Review, Panoply, Hecate Magazine, Spillwords Press, Nymphs Poetry Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Big Windows Review, The White Cresset Arts Journal, Total Eclipse Poetry and Prose, Chiaroscuro—Darkness and Light, dVerse Poets Anthology, With Painted Words, Algebra of Owls, and Lost Towers Publications.

This poem appeared in What We Hold On To: Poems of Coping, Connection, and Carrying On — Winter 2026, published by The Chaos Section Poetry Project.  You can read the full collection or download a free PDF of the chapbook here.