February 4, 2026
Escape to Ripley, Ohio, February 1838
By David Lee Garrison
She serves whisky to her master
and the slave trader,
then hovers outside the parlor
as they deal her life
like a deck of cards.
Jordan River is a river to cross,
I know the other world is not like this.
A white farmer warns her
that the ice on the Ohio is thawing,
but he gives her a fence rail
and leads her to the bank.
She tucks her baby
into a shawl tied round her neck
and runs toward the hill
shaped like a giant locomotive.
Oh run, Mary, run,
I know the other world is not like this.
Three times she falls
through the ice, three times
she clings to the rail
and pulls herself out of the water,
collapsing finally on the shore.
The bounty hunter, who could
sell her for a hundred dollars,
points to the light on the hill
where the Quaker lives.
“Any woman,” he declares,
“who crossed the river this night
has won her freedom.”
Let God’s children sing and shout,
I know the other world is not like this.
David Lee Garrison is a Wright State University Professor Emeritus. His poetry has been read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac, featured by Ted Kooser in his blog, American Life in Poetry, and read by “Game of Thrones” star Tara Fitzgerald on the BBC. He won the Paul Laurence Dunbar Prize in 2009 and was named Ohio Poet of the Year in 2014. His most recent book is Light in the River.
January 6, 2026
In the Immigration Lawyer’s Office
By Diane Kendig
“After the Mother’s Day protests,
I went for my annual gynecology exam.
The nurse looked at my cedula with my name,
same as my mother, who educated herself
on women’s health while she made a living
picking trash and working among
the campesino women, teaching them health.
“The nurse said, ‘Well, let’s just see.’ She inserted
the speculum and said, ‘You don’t have a uterus,’
and she began to dig at me. She called the doctor over.
‘Doctor, this woman doesn’t have a uterus.’
I, who have birthed two children.
The doctor came, took the speculum,
and she, too, dug at me, twisting it.
‘Stop,’ I said, ‘you are hurting me. Stop.’
‘No,’ they both shouted. ‘You need this exam.’
Finally, they stopped. I went home in much pain
And I bled. And bled.”
Diane Kendig’s latest books are Woman with a Fan and Prison Terms, and she co-edited the tribute anthology In the Company of Russell Atkins. Kendig led a prison writing workshop for 18 years and now curates Cuyahoga County Public Library’s weblog “Read + Write” and writes on the streets for “Free Poetry Cleveland.”