We can fight child sexual abuse using a block-and-build strategy rooted in economic, racial, and gender justice.
I like complaining but afterward I feel ashamed
as if I met a man who had no feet from a bomb
my country sold his enemy for export rights to
this season’s coolest sneakers.
My mother still remembers
The long train to Magdeburg
the box cars
bleached gray
by Baltic winters
It struck me some years ago when I saw cave paintings in France from 40,000 years ago that people then were just as intelligent as we are.
The costs of factory farming as it is currently practiced far outweigh the benefits. Here are a few suggestions for how to improve the situation for animals and people.
The Saturnian taste
of old raspberries, and the moon’s
clear-fingered insistence
of leek. These two intangible things
I owe you
And there were so many more poems to read!
Countless friends to listen to.
We didn’t have to be in the same room—
the great modern magic.
Did you know monkeys peel bananas from the bottom up?
Ever try it that way? It’s easier. Monkeys know this.
People know it, too, or at least they do now, but
they don’t do it. People tend to be set in their ways
“I was finishing
my cantata when the revolution broke out …
dashed off the final pages … to the sound of
stray bullets coming over the roofs and pattering
on the wall outside my window….”
One study found that more than two-thirds of the Americans people who get food assistance have been the target of hostile comments and interactions from strangers at the grocery store.
Inside his syncopated thinking, there is only now:
a sound, and he’s a fox kit caught in sudden shift, head cocked,
one paw lifted from the leaves.
He’d talk about the summer
he worked behind a counter,
slicing meat, creating fully
loaded heroes like works of art.
On this Sunday morning at the end of November, I’ve been walking the Snake Road, its tar still dry; our winter is predicted to be warm this year.
These are seen as disposable children, not worthy of protections. And they have already been dehumanized within our culture prior to exploitation, whether it be through poverty, lack of educational or employment opportunities, or prior sexual violence.