by Amanda Johnston

Erica Svec, *Table Top One*, acrylic and oil on canvas, 5 x 5 inches, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.

Breaking News

Amanda Johnston | AUG 2022 | Issue 17

did you hear? mama’s numbers hit

and the lights stayed on another day

the cold stayed away another night

peaches’ baby slid into today

healthy, juicy, and fat

and the insurance company

paid the bill in full

did you hear? they hiring

down at that good job

where uncle shorty works

and they don’t piss test

just let you do your job

and leave on time

gonna send big man

down there lord knows

he need the blessing lord knows

we all need a good word a win

every now and then

most days i keep the television off

always something about somebody

ain’t got nothing to do with me and mine

i can’t afford to turn my eyes

away from this pot

boiling on the stove whistling

almost time almost time

get ready

Amanda Johnston earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them, Callaloo, Poetry Magazine, Puerto del Sol, Muzzle, and the anthologies, Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. She has received fellowships, grants, and awards from Cave Canem Foundation, Hedgebrook, Tasajillo, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Watermill Center, and the Austin International Poetry Festival. She is a former Board President of Cave Canem Foundation, a member of the Affrilachian Poets, cofounder of Black Poets Speak Out, and founder of Torch Literary Arts.

Erica Svec lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.