anti-ICE poems

Mona Lisa How many timesHave I said “Use your words”To quell the impending tantrumFrom a frustrated, overwhelmed childOr a frustrated, overwhelmed me. How many waysDid I learn to defuseAnd de-escalate the tensionWhen pain and suffering turned outwardBecause the pain had to go somewhere. How many timesDid I say “It’s okay”Not knowing if it really was?But… Continue reading

Nick Allison I saw a story about ICE agentseating at a taquería.Hours later they came backto cuff the hands that fed them. I wonder if they finished their plates.I wonder if they laughed at the table. I wonder if they slept well that night,their bellies fullof carnitas and tinga de pollo. I wonder if they… Continue reading

Michael Renshaw Sweltering in my screened porch,faded black T-shirt soaked, front and back.Fan spins but doesn’t cool me.I think of ICE in city streetsand wild life in my country gardenas I ponder predators and prey. Out among my ancient oak treescries of hungry baby red-tailed hawkshuddled together in a rugged tree-top nestimpatient, they squeal to… Continue reading

Eileen McCluskey The meadow sighs. Its tallgrasses bow. It misses the children and their motherswho sang under the trees. It misses that music, flownacross the meadowby bees and breeze. In its loneliness, the meadow speaksa strange tongue, echoes the scratchingmoles burrowing beneath its stony flanks,mimics the sipping roots and hopping birds. The sun overhears and… Continue reading

Barbara Harris Leonhard (A response in kind to “For the Year of the Insane: A Prayer” by Anne Sexton. I used her first and last lines as mine.) I.O Mary, fragile mother,I hold a silver rosary,pray, and listen. Our world has been illfor more yearsthan I can count. Cancers grow in the garden.Deniers seize dying… Continue reading

John Steele May higher tariffsraise the price of everything you need. Dear Trump voter,May mass deportation of undocumented immigrantsdestroy the agriculture industryand other sectors of the economythat rely on low-wage, back-breaking labor,although I’m sure you and your friendswill rush to claim those jobs that were being stolenfrom you. Dear Trump voter,May threatened librarians and public… Continue reading

Chad Parenteau Pizza parlorblares country,covers trail. Whiskey in hand,on windowsill,drunk on lyrics. Kenny Rogerscroons, ownerglares outside. Teaches himselfwhere they watchback, when to run. Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals including Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, and… Continue reading

Jennifer Elise Wang It’s why we’re glad X Games is in Colorado and not the Ice Coast.Ice makes you slip.Ice makes you catch an edge.Ice hurts.I.C.E. kills.I’m struggling with the ice-cold response to the news in Aspen.I get the athletes needing to have ice in their veinsTo win the ice X Games created in lieu… Continue reading

Kerfe Roig How will I name myself?What voice speaks for me?Whose dreams can I share?What door opens to welcome me? I am full of nothing, separatedinto parts that were neversomething I could call my own—how will I name myself? Where is the languagethat sounds naturalon my tongue?What voice speaks for me? Everything belongs to someone… Continue reading

Nina Kodrič and Snježana Vračar Mihelač the news of the day cut right throughmothers start refusing foodas if it could be realit’s not a hasty decisionit stirs our indifferencethey have nothing left to loseblasts throughexcept for their voicethe rampant apathythey stop impassable bodiesendless pretence knows no boundsscattered like cargoesinstead of a containable everyday lifevital like… Continue reading