Ellen McGrath Smith: An American Dream
I dreamed I bought a gun. At a Rite-Aid.
It was heavy, brightly colored, a girl-gun.
Ellen McGrath Smith: Hand me your last resurrection 
like a small child hidden in a hollow tree
while the soldiers kill his family
Ellen McGrath Smith: On Being a Late-Night Motion Detector Detector
Two tiny yellow eyes stared back at me from the shadows near the shed. This has happened with my dog and with my cats, but I had never experienced this with a rat.
Ellen McGrath Smith: March 22, 2020
As it is, we’re quarantined in cages,
rooms, apartments, city houses, ranches
in the suburbs, the further out you go
the more chance to forget, to forgo
every caution you’ve ever not taken.
Ellen McGrath Smith — Corona: The Apples in Winter
The emotions go somewhere. Like water, they find
their own depth and go somewhere.
The salmon-smudged sunset unravels December
as Saturn comes in to make judgments,
name debts.
Ellen McGrath Smith — Shaken 48: How careful was I when I took my way
Hands in my pockets, the salt on the streets,
the yellowing aura that means you are here
by my side again, waking me in dread
with no buffer or bounce. It’s been ten years.
Ellen McGrath Smith: My Mother at the Alamo
I would later doubt my mother at the sink, her bruised eye shut, or my mother kneeling
near the orange bucket full of dirty water, ready to snap as drunken rants poured down.
Andrew Hanin: Congratulations (Response to Tree of Life Massacre)
Congratulations on your victory. My fear of G-D redirected toward You. . You’ll never see me set foot in that depressed sacred space. Those armed guards aren’t ready for You. … Continue reading
Ellen McGrath Smith: Erasures
. To a Candid World Election Day, 2018 Dependent on his Will alone, the political bands are totally dissolved: light and transient causes, convulsions within, domestic insurrection; Cruelty and … Continue reading
Ellen McGrath Smith: I want to put on a show like a Congressman
Dogs in the dog park, fighting pretty nice until someone unleashes their alpha, and the humans rush in to do the rough equivalent of calling their elected representatives, pulling their … Continue reading
Ellen McGrath Smith: A Royal Wedding in the Trump Era, Or My Sixth Grade Civics Head Explodes
No I’m not watching royals get married this weekend. If I want shiny surfaces, I’ll find a river, lake, or pond, the bathroom mirror. Are we destined to worship descendants … Continue reading
Ellen McGrath Smith: Tammi Jo Schults
To be a woman of a certain age the day the hero pilot is a woman! As though, suddenly, a failsafe illusion just evaporates: There is a type of … Continue reading
Ellen McGrath Smith: The ascendancy of the word “Douchebag”
can be attributed to Twitter and other social media. Compared to other obscene slurs predating the Internet, “douchebag” enjoys much more frequency and vehemence. It’s fun and satisfying for the … Continue reading
Ellen McGrath Smith: 9 1/2 Months
This is not a film I wish to be in but there’s nowhere else to go; so I sit on the deck, let fall slow-bruise my heart, pretend this French … Continue reading
Vox Populi 