When my children ask me who won

the world, fear grabs all 78 places

American women used to think of as

autonomous. Here in Spain, the news

 

corners me from 5000 miles away,

its claws sharp but intangible—

a lucky escape, friends say. Luck,

that four-letter misnomer, swaggering

 

as if clad in tuxedo and bow tie.

Charlatan in a gentleman´s getup,

raping my tongue for days.

What is luck if not unpredictable?

 

I can´t tell them which natural

disaster he has up his cuffs next.

The number of people who will suffer

or die as he rattles our planet, lunging

 

for loose change. How many countries´

pendulums have swung perilously

to the right, even ours? The chain

dolls my children made for Halloween

 

break my gaze, like a bullet through

an eye—if I sketched an oppressor´s face

on each one, they´d stretch the length

of our home, all frown line and sneer,

 

creepier than ghosts and goblins.

Is anything bad going to happen?

they ask. I say, L and F aren´t so

different, with their rigid right angles.

 

Their fiery exclamation.

 

 

Julie Weiss

Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay Books, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II, published by Bottlecap Press. Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, is forthcoming in 2025 with Kelsay Books. “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” was selected as a 2023 finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for “Cumbre Vieja,” was named a finalist for the 2022 Saguaro Prize, and was shortlisted for Kissing Dynamite´s 2021 Microchap Series. Her work appears in Chesnut Review, ONE ART, Rust + Moth, Sky Island Journal, and others. Originally from California, she lives with her wife and children in Spain. You can find her at https://www.julieweisspoet.com/.