Penny Perry

After Charlottesville

I carry my dreams into the day.

White men in hoodies, wave

Tiki torches, chase me, a Jew,

a woman, and old, down allies,

and neon lit streets. I’m slower

than the girl I once was, the brick

searing past my ear, the words

Christ killer singing the air.

Through the egg wash of morning

mist, I see finch at the feeder.

The great ones, Tolstoy,

Symborska, say even in times

of war, life stitches wounds..

A peasant buys fish at the market.

A beetle crosses a plaza.

A prodigal cat appears at the door.

Penny Perry is a six-time Pushcart nominee in fiction and poetry, Perry is the author of an honorable mention chapbook "What Women Do" for Earth's Daughters, and a winner for the west coast poets for Persimmon Magazine. She is a co author of the chapbook "Maiden, Mother, Crone." Garden Oak Press published her poetry collection "Santa Monica Disposal and Salvage" in 2012. She was a screenwriting fellow at AFI. PBS funded and screened a film she wrote from her own short story. Her first novel Selling Pencils and Charlie (Garden Oak Press) published in 2020