US Strikes Iran in support of Israel
She wore a trump/vance shirt
on her walk today.
The skinny old flat-footed lady
who has reportedly duck walked
these Florida streets
alone with her Jesus sermons
for the last twenty years
announced
we are not bitter
delusional or merciless.
Last night, claiming to hear
the bombs of war
she saw on the Fox news channel,
she rushed out
barefooted in dark celebration
seeking tomorrow’s flame in the burned-out moon.
Neighbors reported
she stood vigilant
arms akimbo
neck straining upwards,
her two tiny breasts
looked like hollowed eyes
peeking wantonly from her night dress.
It was an inky sky that night
Nothing to see here the neighbors said,
but she pushed back against its blackness,
insisting that somewhere across the desert
the night sky revealed a beautiful pallet of the world
with all the colors of explosion.
It was a symphony of urgency,
she said, a rush of redemption
the womb of childless women has become ripe
and men everywhere now dream of children
whose hearts feed on the might of white butterflies at work.
Today. January. 2026. Our America
They gunned down a young white girl
with pronouns in her bio
who wasn’t quite white
was gay
when they killed her in her car
her wife sank
plunged
unbalanced
in the Minnesota snow
she must have cried long tears
because the body
cannot exist without its soul
cannot live in a longing
for shadows in the snow
the women did not beware of the brown shirt men
who had too much power
who perform in daylight hours
who adopt a curated military
get the fuck out the car or else
and for that, they died.
In Florida,
an old brown woman
with twisted English
swears she is healing
from chasing a country
that would not stand still for her
healing from a country
whose petty pedo tyrant
hurl insults at dead men in the snow
and whose brown shirt men
pumped up with the blood of others
swoop down
on angels
who guard their herd
with breath and whistles.
The snow people tell us
today will not be the final hour
of daylight
although empty cars with open doors
litter the streets
and old brown women hide their 40-year-old expired passport
in the bottom of a mail basket.
Today
shadows dance
and form textures in the snow
pronouns and tongues twist into souls
falling from the daytime sky
in a generous mingling of todays and tomorrows.
Indulgence of 2025 American Yard
At this time of year
in drought winter
lawns are dry
prickly like wild porcupine quills
bald patches stamp the ground
and branches crack easily like sugar snap peas
everywhere
except
the house next door
where the American flag
stands a soulless prop
over the old people’s expansive
manicured lawn
beautiful in its American greatness
and its peace
beautiful in its shadows
that stretch across the green grass
on a winter’s day
pretty little house flags
punctuate the neatly organized
shrubbery islands
with welcome words:
home sweet home
because the opinions of others matter
(the “millionaire daughter” insists so)
stone Buddha figurines
scatter about the lawn
they get watered
they get welcomed
one Buddha sits under the great laurel oak
obscured behind a mini picket fence
planted in the space where
two tree trunks separate
around the Buddha’s neck
hangs
a red and white
corrugated plastic
yard sign:
Trump 2028
around the Buddha’s neck
hangs
a red and white
corrugated plastic
yard sign:
Trump 2028
Returning
Because they eat cake for breakfast in Brazil
and dinner lasts for two hours
three courses long
punctuated with cachaça and bolo
with laugher and love
with beijos and abraços
Because I have laughed
open mouthed for a month,
lived on palm oil and acarajes,
Today I eat rolled oats for breakfast
sweet apples and summer strawberries
believing the weight of my food
equals the thickness of my thighs
Because here in America
we cover our bums.
Because we eat salads with boiled eggs
and celebrate
the discipline of meagerness,
I am learning again to count
by rice grains
Because returning always comes
with a price
Because the price usually comes
from the price of forgetting
Because my runner’s thighs
sit high on top of each other
not flimsy like those
white girl thighs
that flap over each other
with plenty of space to
buckle ankles together
Because I am more
than I was a month ago,
I know I am my mother’s child
whose face is too full
to fit in her hands.
Suzanne Lynch is an emerging writer. She has been writing for as long as she can remember. As she looks toward retirement from college teaching, she has returned to where she began. She has recently published poems in the fall 25 issue of The Florida Scholarly Review and in the 2020 issue of Sanctuary.
The Marbled Sigh 