AN OLD MAN WORRIES ON FACETIME
by Jerry Krajnak
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A ten-year-old who looks like a Renaissance cherub proudly shows me his AK-47 (1,400 tiny Lego pieces) as we Facetime, tells me he likes it even more than this Glock he made last week. I try to change the subject. School. Friends. Boring, all boring. He shifts to a Roblox game where the goal is to kill these scurrying little people as quickly as you can. The more you kill, the more play money you’re paid and can buy better guns, become more efficient at killing little people, earn even more money and win the game and buy more guns for next time.
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Jerry Krajnak gardens, writes poetry, and worries in his North Carolina cabin where he enjoys Facetiming with distant grandchildren. Usually. Recent poems appear in Autumn Sky Poetry, Rat’s Ass Review, The New Verse News, The Examined Life, Star 82 Review, and other journals.
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WARNING SIGN
by Diane Elayne Dees
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The sign is hard to miss, as shoppers cross the parking lot to buy t-shirts, groceries, toys, bath towels, cosmetics. The sign next to it is even bigger, and just as serious, warning patrons that abuse of any kind toward staff will not be tolerated, and that law enforcement will be notified. Maybe someday, those signs will appear normal— the new normal, that assumes that we are all under threat of attack at every moment in any place. Or maybe someday, in a parallel universe, it will be normal not to carry shotguns and knives on errands, or—in a different galaxy— normal to treat people with respect. In the meantime, every time I pass, I wonder about the little girls and boys —already anxious, already frightened, clinging to their teddy bears— I wonder what must have happened inside that glass-enclosed pediatric clinic, and I wonder what will happen next.
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Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbooks Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books) The Last Time I Saw You (Finishing Line Press), and The Wild Parrots of Marigny (Querencia Press). Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world.