Tag: RBG

The Notorious

By Alex Penland     

 

Do you remember Yad Vashem? How
the path that leads you through the
exhibit is chronological and single
lined, each point presented on a hair
pin turn of events: here is where a new
legislation was passed, here is where
some diplomat died, here is where the
people thought oh, one more degree
in this pot won’t make the water
boil yet. But then you cross the river
gap to the next section of the exhibit
and are suddenly granted a perception
of time as a whole, not a part, and when
you reach the section where it gets so
bad that you think you must be near the
end you look down the line at all the
bridges and no. You’re half through.
Half through the voices saying we
thought they wouldn’t dare, thought
people were better than they were or
human goodness was more ubiquitous
than it is or some protection was more
sturdy than the flimsy social contract
it turned out to be and things get so
much worse, and the hope of it becomes
less a light in the tunnel and more a
light in the eyes blinding us from the
things that live in the darkness. She
was one of those protections, I think
now, a stone wall painted on paper,
and through the fire it’s amazing she
held the line as long as she did, but
that greasy burning and a squealing
that is not pigs is coming closer now,
and for the moment I am on the safe
side of the shower door, but I can’t
help but look down the crack in the
exhibit hall and think we aren’t even
close yet, we’re not even close to the light.

 

Alex Penland was a museum kid: a childhood of running rampant through the Smithsonian kicked off a lifelong inspiration for science fiction, poetry, and science-inspired fantasy. Their work has been internationally published in The Midwest Review, Story Cities, and the upcoming Strange Lands anthology by Flame Tree Press. Their poetry has been awarded by Writers’ Digest and previously appeared in the December 2018 issue of Writers Resist.  They currently live in Scotland studying for a PhD in Creative Writing. You can follow Alex on Twitter @AlexPenname or visit their website at www.AlexandraPenn.com.

Yad Vashem photo by Anders Jacobsen on Unsplash.

Unknowns

By Robin Q. Malin

 

There’s a lot of things I don’t know.

I don’t know what I believe.
I don’t know who I love.
All I know right now is that
when I look into her eyes
I long to trace her cheekbones,
to touch her lips,
to stroke her cherry colored hair
under the stars.
I know that she is beautiful,
that I am not supposed
to want what I think I might want.

I want to write to my father’s god,
to tell him that
I just want to dance with her,
to ask him why the sound
of his silence is so deafening.

I’m sorry.
This poem was supposed
to be about Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
That’s where I started,
because I remembered
the soft sighs, the dissenting
voices of my parents
on the day when marriage
became a fuller and more
encompassing word,
and I don’t remember their
words but I remember
that they felt heavy
and red and broken
and I didn’t know why.

I remember a debate,
a debate that should not
have needed to be a debate
about if because
my name is Woman
it is also Meek, it is also
Equal (But In A Different
And Lower Way).
I remember that Ruth
said let there be nine,
there’s been nine men,
and I wonder if the disciples
were all women,
would scripture be called
blasphemy?
I don’t know.

So now I will tell you what I do know.

I know that the divinity I know
is there in the flickers
of light that shine on her hair,
in the sunset heavy clouds,
in the weight of words
that deny hatred a place
of power.

I know that if there is a heaven,
I want to weave a crown of flowers
and send them up to Ruth,
and ask her how she knew
that life was worth the tears
it took to make it worth living.

 

Photo credit: Miss Ayumaii Kawaii via a Creative Commons license.