By Pamela L. Laskin

Mother pray

for freedom

from your body.

March

to the malignant beat

of your battled breath.

No suffragette,

you birthed

a baby

into oblivion

until she

was an adult

who realized

women's rights

may mean

leaving your mentally ill mother

harnessed like a horse

in her institutional bed,

to rally

and rot.

Cease Fire

To a Friend

You've bombed

my occupied territory,

and no matter how much I tell myself

what choice did you have

my boundaries

still bleed,

all the civilians housed in my heart

are displaced;

this land

will never be the same.

Try dressing the amputations

that hang between us.