NVN Thursday: ALMA MATER
by Catherine Gonick
Pro-Palestinian protesters gather in front of Sproul Hall during a planned protest at UC Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif., on Monday, April 22, 2024. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
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A goddess of silence carries my severed right arm my Zionist arm they call genocidal among many other names. Silently moving out of sight through camps where the righteous sing from tents it waves goodbye. I hear the blood of words dry feel the pain of my phantom limb.
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Catherine Gonick's alma mater is U.C. Berkeley. She has published poetry in journals including Live Encounters, Notre Dame Review, Forge, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and in anthologies including Support Ukraine, Grabbed, and Rumors, Secrets & Lies: Poems About Pregnancy, Abortion and Choice. She works in a company that slows the rate of global warming through projects that repair and restore the climate.