Category: The Last Word

Essay: “Do You Still Love Me If I’m White?” by Sonja Johanson

In the days immediately after the election, many of us were shocked, grieving, enraged, and struggling with the knowledge we had, for too long, been silent as our friends, neighbors, and family members took sides with bigotry. One of the first acts for many was to take to social media and declare sides publicly, announcing…
Three Poems by Sergio A. Ortiz

A Wolf “I know there’s something better down the road.We need to find a place where we are safe.”—from “Praise Song for the Day,” by Elizabeth Alexander passed by my eyesleaving his footstepsin my veins.Stealthy and hungry,he stalked the cityscrutinizing the future.Today the shutters are closedbecause in this poemthere’s a wolfcoming to get me.Even when I…
Poetry: “The Force” by Danielle DeTiberus

Generations of boys whacking offin bedrooms and basements, imaginingthemselves one of three men inside a juiced-up worm frothing at the gold bikiniprincess. Metal cold on so much bareflesh that even the married, middle-aged cad can’t help himself to a taste betweentakes. But what of Carrie, nineteen and nowomen around to shrug at, to roll her…
Fiction: “Almost Like Children” by Erika T. Wurth

Cary was a small town Indian girl. Her eyes were wide, black and slanted. Her hair long and orangey brown. Years ago, her mother had come to Idaho Springs to be with her father, but she was gone. Cary’s mother was Chickasaw and nobody knew anything about her, not even Cary’s father. Sam, however, lived…
Two Poems by Kate Bucca

Cleave The man I chose for an affairrose onlyto my forehead. His cock barely registered in my mouth. So when my husbandthrew me down and forced his way inside I answered him honestly— yes, you are bigger— before he struck my face. ~ Flashbacks ease with treatmentor so they say. Instead I recreate,drink…
Poetry: “Getting an IUD after Trump Becomes the President-elect” by Emily Paige Wilson

An empty vase has been placed near the sink.An elongated bottle cut from bright cobalt glass,slender neck stretched four or five inches high. It’s mydistraction when the clamp’s cold pinch starts to pulland turn my stomach. I did not wish for this intimacywith fear. My doctor’s fingers caressing a cervixthat won’t open, as if it…
Essay: “On Family and White Liberalism after the Election” by Justin Brouckaert

In the days after the election, Twitter became a madhouse of pointed fingers—who to blame, who to follow, what to study. Shocked and numb, I scrolled through every thread my liberal echo chamber deemed a “must read.” One in particular, by Marco Rogers, actually was. White liberals, Rogers claimed, have “systematically and deliberately separated themselves…
Fiction: “Correcting President Barnes” by Kelly Ann Jacobson

We called him The Editor. He arrived from the sky—black briefcase in hand, suit cinched tightly at the neck with a black tie—and after a flawless landing on the roof, entered the building in a few short, purposeful strides. He looked like a man, and if you touched his skin, he would feel like a…
Essay: “Recent Encounters with Wildlife” by Ginny MacDonald

I’m writing at work again. I’m sorry, employer. I keep the news feed on: Google the names, groups, affiliations. I get my facts straight. I saw a moose in the headlights—dust-brown flanks, head forward, long-legged and unconcerned with my existence. I stopped the car, but I was already past and the sun was not yet…