July 2024
Bio Note: I am a writer, an aspiring teacher, and a mom. I live in the DC metro area with my husband and son. I am a founding member of the Old Scratch Short Form Collective. My first chapbook, No Ocean Spit Me Out, was published in June 2024. My poetry and fiction have appeared online and in multiple anthologies.
On the Pending 2024 Election
US politics have become
a twisting ouroboros
a flaming maw
devouring a barbed tail
which leaves the country
starving for leadership
while those in power
gorge themselves
on their own warped rhetoric.
Body Parts Found in Landing Gear of Flight from Kabul, Officials Say
New York Times 08/17/21
The Air Force claims the episode
will be investigated. A docu-drama
the whole world watched, as Afghan civilians
clung to the cargo plane, clothes billowing
in the wind before grips loosened
and bodies plummeted from the sky.
an undetermined number of desperate
refugees crushed by call sign REACH885
landing gear retracting into flesh and bone
shattering determined fingers and skulls.
Chaplains were called to comfort the crew
but what was offered for those who try to flee?
The rotor wash of two Apache helicopters.
A runway littered with fractured corpses.
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL