Richard Holinger
Migration
The neighbors to the west of us—separated by rows
of buckthorn trees, their green, then red, then black berries
targets for birds, tiny bullseyes pecked by winter robins
in this rural Illinois county—fly two Trump flags,
most days lifeless, limp, without a breeze to whip it into shape.
I wonder if they know that only the female buckthorn,
contrary to its testosterone-sounding name, produces
fruit, does the work for her lazy, good-for-nothing
counterpart.
While walking by their driveway
on my way to mailboxes lined beside the two-lane,
I notice one tree stripped to its yellow interior
as if to flay the flesh off an enemy combatant
to reveal and oust the evil lurking inside.
My son, far down the lake beside its crumbling dam,
sits on a pail beside a small, drilled hole
flicking a short rod up and down to get the attention
of cold, slow-moving largemouth bass. He looks around
to find a January robin at the buckthorn branch,
a later cell phone photo showing a bird the rest of the family
believes is stuffed or damn near dead, so thin and haggard
the hanger-on appears on this sub-zero windchill day.
A U.S. military transport jet migrates south
with manacled, undocumented immigrants
on their way to warmer, southern climes
where death is on the wing.
Executive Orders
“Our golden age has just begun.”
- President Donald J. Trump, January 20, 2025
They come like a squadron of Stukas strafing,
bombing enemy targets, innocents lost
to air raid sirens, fearing dark places
where forced to hide, beneath cement ceilings,
along infinite passageways designed for trains,
families coupled together by hasty suitcases
filled with photographs more valuable than gold.
The fat, black magic marker, undressed, obese
and bullish, squeaks its labyrinthine path
bottoming out its Order, barked like a whiskered
seal demanding a tail-flapping fish be dropped
down his gullet, satisfied, once fed, for now,
having ingested the living corpse he’s hungered for
ever since consuming his last meal, minutes ago.
And, after his finale, the crescendo over, the baton
sealed up, he bids his orchestra stand to accept
the applause he’s certain is certainly for him alone,
conductor so extraordinary no one is like him—
never before, never again—while those slapping
their sycophantic hands together swear silently they’ll turn
someday against this Washington-Lincoln perversion,
but not just yet, not just now, now’s not the time.
Richard Holinger’s work appears in Chautauqua, SIR, Cleaver, Whitefish Review, Cutleaf, and elsewhere. Nominations include the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction 2025, included in the latter. Books include North of Crivitz (poetry) and Kangaroo Rabbits and Galvanized Fences (essays). His chapbook, “Not Everybody’s Nice” won the 2012 Split Oak Press Flash Prose Contest. His 2025 poetry chapbook, Down from the Sycamores, is available from www.finishinglinepress.com. He holds a doctorate in creative writing from UIC, taught high school and community college English for decades, and lives in rural northern Illinois.
More at www.richardholinger.com.
Banner Art:
from Catastrophe, Doris Lee, 1936
