NVN Sunday: POEM TO RUMI

for my granddaughter

by Tina Williams

AI-generated graphic by NightCafe for The New Verse News.

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“Ken Paxton sues New York doctor accused of prescribing abortion pills to Texas woman: This case sets up a legal battle between Texas’ near-total abortion ban and New York’s shield law that protects doctors from out-of-state prosecution.” —The Texas Tribune, December 13, 2024

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A week before the election,
my neighbor next door overnight
posted a Women for Trump
sign and I was too incensed
the next day to wave to her
as she stood on her porch
with a smile as big as Texas
which is where we live
and where my 17-year-old
granddaughter could be raped
tomorrow and made to bear
the damage done
no questions asked.
 
Meanwhile Rumi 
calls from a wall
in my office
that out beyond 
the ideas 
of wrongdoing 
and rightdoing
there is a field
and that we should 
meet each other there
but, Rumi, my dear 
dead Sufi poet,
you never met
my neighbor's 
grab ’em 
by the pussy hero.
 
You never saw
freckles dance
on my 
granddaughter’s
cheeks.
 
In some poems 
there is a field 
too far.

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Tina Williams’s poems have appeared in the San Pedro River Review, Quartet Journal, Amethyst Review, The New Verse News, As It Ought To Be Magazine, Stone Poetry Journal, and Green Ink Poetry.