August 24, 2026
Caste Out
By Patsy Asuncion
My urban ghetto was a soup kitchen of immigrants—
Black, White, Hispanic, Slavic stirring up their own
gang turfs, crews and church creeds. Threatened,
like feeling a switch blade to throat, nobody crossed
territory marked in piss by different dogs.
Dark mahogany, my Filipino father honed an appetite
for white women—ate at least three wives I heard,
two blondes and an Irish red-head, my teen mother
who fled before my first birthday. His American
dream came at a stabbing price, serial divorces.
As a child piercing stares, deliberate as daggers,
were thrown my way, disguised as routine
pastime, merely glances from zoo visitors
inspecting a curious cub. But, their surveillance
skittered when I looked their way, like a wolf
spider discovering it’s the one now being hunted.
Eyes zigzagged scars across father to stepmother,
then pretended to settle on others. They scanned
me last for telltale moves and my milk-chocolate
features to spit out right after we left.
Civilized bias, polite as afternoon tea, discouraged me.
There were break-ups by college boys after meeting
their parents who’d skewer me with steel words like
Don’t get involved with her, son, face the color facts.
To this day, questions from strangers about
my heritage in Where you from? really intending
What are you? After auditions, I’d get Sorry, you’re
not the right look for us. Even my in-laws
warned Son, we’re worried about more
problems if you have children.
Bigotry cut through white-washed walls
to the full-blooded Filipino world that erased me—
shunned at celebrations cut from Tagalog dialogue
forgotten in family headlines and denied my birthrights.
There was no need for my parents to hint, joke or
talk about invasive scrutiny because each had
identification cards—one for Brown and one for
White exclusive memberships. I held a Green card—
alien residence, subject to restrictions without notice.
Patsy Asuncion, retired educator and Palm Beach Principal of the Year, has published three poetry collections: Cut on the Bias, Lineage of Weeds, and A Universal Belonging. Patsy’s work is in twenty-plus other publications, such as New York Times, Sixty-Four Best Poets of 2019, About Place, Artemis, and Cutthroat. Patsy, a biracial first-generation immigrant, promotes diversity through national, community, and open mic events (YouTube 22,050+ views). You may visit her website at www.patsy-asuncion.com. “Caste Out” is included in Cut on the Bias (Laughing Fire Press, 2015).
July 30, 2026
I Want A World Separate from Capitalism
By E.L.Dan
My friends and I would spend our days tending to our creative
projects: my hands busy crocheting a hat for Amber’s new baby,
Ella reading me that mystical writing project she’s been dreaming of,
Allie playing their guitar in between sips of coffee. In this space,
we are allowed to dream. Productivity and worth are parallel lines
that never cross the pathways of our minds.
Today is my 31st birthday. 24 years ago I was a nonbinary kid sitting
at their plastic red craft desk in their dining room—my most favorite
place to try to make sense of the world. I would write short stories about
a Christmas tree too small for anyone to want to take home, ants having
a picnic in the park and all they would feast on. There’s a craft I still have
from elementary school: a yellow construction paper star with my school
picture in the middle, like a glowing orb of light. It reads:
Erin wishes she could give beds to people.
And what I’d give to know the context of this wish. When was the first time
I realized that not everyone is gifted the same level of humanity? That the ones
in power grab all the money they can fit in their pockets only to blame it on people
they claim are illegal on stolen land? How would I tell my younger self about
this joke of a president who desperately wants to control our bodies and tries
to shove us into boxes of pink or blue? I would invite them, and you, too, to kick over
those canisters of paint. Destroy the borders of your imagination. Tap into the place
within you where their hatred cannot reach. Stretch out your hands and create
from that place. The place that says:
We have been storytellers since the beginning of time.
Creating something from nothing is as natural to us as breathing.
We need your art now more than ever. Unedited, unfiltered, seen in the glow of the
morning light, a holy exhibit of permission, exactly as it was always meant to be.
Erin Dansevicus (they/them) is an artist, poet, author, Reiki practitioner, and owner of their own small business, Rooted In Courage, which utilizes the healing modalities of poetry, Reiki, art, and meditation in order to empower others in hopes of moving toward collective liberation. Erin (aka E.L.Dan) is the author of Let the Water Run Clear, a collection of poetry that spans over a decade and explores themes such as mental health, body image, sexuality, gender identity, fear, shame, and healing. Erin currently resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with their wife, cat, dog, and rescued betta fish.
July 12, 2026
Enemy of the Rake
By Jeremy Jusek
The words in my head get scrambled.
Two hundred of us were locked up in this ten by ten
shed; set the curiosity aside for how this stationary
clown car came to be and think instead how
serious
a situation this is
Let’s start with the stakes, real unfocused, like
an optometrist’s Snellen chart at 50 yards
I see the words out of focus, nonsensical at first
pious green, relentless creep
cathedral hush, cannibal riot
Let’s start by looking at the field outside the shed:
Spoiled snow and blackened briar
and blanketing the blood-soaked soil, boots
and shirts and things we threw out.
We are reminded while our stomachs growl
(we’re going to miss chicken nugget day in this shed)
We are reminded of the power of words
vine wall veneer, frantic diaspora
milk of angels, nuclear horizon
You see,
anything endless is a weed
and all weeds left unchecked colonize
Lesser celandine ripples shockwaves across
the ecosystem, and no audience wants
its poets to drone on forever. Bulbs and youtubers
surge outward, relentlessly—swelling,
expanding in a crusade to convert
the dirt, to expel the heathens and their native faith.
If we’re not careful, the kudzu will swallow the shed
long before we are found.
Colonize: a word in strict vow of dominion.
Feel the power of resource—yes, colonize:
empire of roots, rampant fertility
holy laughter, radioactive meltdown
Poison the cattle, crowd out their old defenses.
Crawl out of your frozen hellhole
before the rake can strike,
before the boots lie buried and forgotten,
before those tubers burst and poison the fish.
We raise our venerable, vulnerable derriere to the shed door
—it will open any second now, you’ll see—
Oh and don’t forget voluptuous, and tag my insta #threeVs,
make me age gracefully as a millennial—make me
stand up to fascism before it’s too late for the woke to wake
the fuck up—make me a fool for throwing my retirement
into stocks—lock the stocks around my neck
like the other blathering idiots that were stupid enough
to dream in America. Stupid enough to think 300 million
people looked at the ol’ stars ’n stripes and somehow think
everyone all saw the same damned thing.
aggressive snodgrass, unholy choir
clotted honey, ballistic hive
But the rake still rusts in the shed,
handle splintered, waiting on our trembling grip.
We squint at each other in the glare—
still unable to see the letters on that Snellen chart,
someone replaced it, it’s full of big blurry Es.
Don’t ya know while we were fiddling with the rake
they locked the door behind us
how do you not know who locked the door behind us
you could see the maintenance man mouthing the words
fevered orchestration, unstoppable spore
demented carnival, hush of gods
no they aren’t gonna let us out
no they don’t care it’s hot in here
no they don’t care we skipped lunch
Stop striking at the weeds and demanding
the door get opened the normal way and grab a shovel instead—
let us strike so hard the door splits and we call some biologists
and perhaps a pious lawyer or three
before the kudzu eats them, too
Jeremy Jusek is former poet laureate of Parma, Ohio. He has authored three books: We Grow Tomatoes in Tiny Towns, The Less Traveled Street, and The Details Will Be Gone Soon. He hosts the Ohio Poetry Association’s podcast Poetry Spotlight, runs the West Side Poetry Workshop, and founded the Flamingo Writers’ Guild.
Editors’ Note: Jeremy Jusek read “Enemy of the Rake” during In This Together 2025, as part of PARH USA’s annual program marking the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder and addressing systemic racism. View the video on the PARH USA YouTube channel here.