Issue #31.6 A Triple Issue: Naa Asheley Ashitey, James H. Duncan, Sally Huggins Toner
A Poem by Naa Asheley Ashitey
Fables and lessons
I fell on top of four broken hourglasses in the hallway. I stared at the single shard Of glass, the single piece that somehow pierced The little bit of skin my sock didn’t cover of my ankle, And now found a temporary resting place. I held my breath knowing the pain that was going to come Once I would pull it out, and the second and third stages of pain That would come with the alcohol wipes and the bandage. I found myself even more upset at the thought cleaning up after myself, cursing at the fact that taking the glass out would cause more pain than leaving it in; more blood to drip down my ankles to the sides and the creases of my feet; the awareness of the risk of infection, necrosis and apoptosis all at once. I am left burdened with more to clean, fix and watch as the skin slowly heals over the next few days or months; all while the piece of glass that injured me will simply just end up in the trash, alongside the other glass pieces, grainy sand, and uneaten lunches from the coffee stand.
How is that fair?
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Naa Asheley Ashitey is a Chicago-born writer and MD–PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. A first-generation, low-income Ghanaian-American and University of Chicago alumna, she writes at the intersection of race, medicine, and belonging.
Her creative and editorial writing examines how policy, media, and academia reproduce structural violence—and what it means to resist with truth.
Her creative work appears or is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, BULL, Hobart, Michigan City Review of Books, and editorials for The Xylom, MedPage Today and KevinMD. She has been nominated for multiple awards, including Best Small Fiction. More at NaaAshitey.com.
Twitter/Instagram: @foreverasheley
Bluesky: @foreverasheley.bsky.social
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A Poem by James H. Duncan
Variations of Blue
from these cliffs, the North Sea absolves
there is nothing here but variations of blue the stones and the seas and even the way the grass changes color to match the sky when it rains across alpine tundra—there’s nothing here, they say, but that’s the point
with no disease, there’s no need for a cure there’s no need for anything but oceans rounding stones into sand, wind buffeting across generational miles and the long embrace of nights safe from depredation
in a land of nothing but variations of blue
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James H. Duncan is the editor of Hobo Camp Review and the author of Talavera Sunsets, Cistern Latitudes, Both Ways Home, and other books of poetry and fiction. He also writes about indie bookstores for his blog, The Bookshop Hunter. For more visit www.jameshduncan.com
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A Poem by Sally Huggins Toner
Joker
My cousin beds Joker down in his stall, spreads fresh hay over dung, fills his water, brushes him sleek and clean—an apology, perhaps. Earlier— she made him pay. She took the reins, lashed him the kind of hard that comes from fear as much as rage. She knows she’s in for it when her daddy finds out, and his leather has a buckle on the end. The horse took off with me on top. She promised she wouldn’t let me ride him by myself. I swore I’d ridden before, but that was just at summer camp. Those ponies weren’t rescued from the rodeo. They weren’t built for speed like him. I imagine, before he goes to sleep, Joker curling his Mr. Ed lips into a grin when he considers how he almost threw me from his back—a towhead a quarter of his quarter horse size, with sturdy, stubby, barrel racing legs just like his. Before I go to sleep, I’ll feel my fingers as they squeezed the straps, pulling hard against the bit until my nails chewed the softness of my palm— how I wasn’t strong enough raise his head. I’ll recall how he picked up speed, my cousin too, how she screamed as we charged the front of her house. How my aunt came out. How she stood, on the step, much taller than herself held up her hand, palm facing Joker’s ornery eyes. How he skidded to a dusty halt. Years from now, my cousin will abandon cowboys, outlaw behavior. She’ll replace blue jeans and boots for nurses' scrubs, a stable of children, grandchildren of her own. No one will remember Mr. Ed on black-and-white TV. Neither will my aunt. She won’t remember Mr. Ed or Joker. She won’t remember me when I see her in the nursing home where she’s bedded down. The one my cousin and her daddy chose so carefully. They’ll cut her hair short and sleek and clean. My uncle will place a baseball cap so gently on her head—an apology, perhaps. She’ll laugh, say he’s cute. When he tries to take a cookie from her packet of Milano’s, she’ll flash her ornery eyes for just a second; then she’ll snatch it back. She’ll put a hand on my cheek, call me pretty. I’ll take her other hand in mine, turn it over, stroke her palm, remembering how soft and strong it always was. That, at least, will feel the same.
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Sally Huggins Toner (she/her) has lived in the Washington D.C. area for over 30 years. Her poetry, fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in Northern Virginia Magazine, Gargoyle Magazine, Watershed Review, and other publications. Her chapbook Anansi and Friends was published by Finishing Line Press in 2019. She received an MFA in narrative nonfiction from the University of Georgia. An empty nester with two grown daughters, she lives in Reston, Virginia with her husband. You can find her at sallytoner.com, @salliemander.bsky.social on Bluesky, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally-toner-65290346/ on LinkedIn, salliemander70 on Instagram, and on X at @SallyToner
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