Written by Andi Stout
A deadly scarlet wind
rips across the map,
tainted
with lethal ideology.
Faded like a whisper,
my voice feels
tiny.
“Your body,
my choice,”
I hear them say,
I see them post…
…re-post…
and re-post—
but I am the ocean,
a small but mighty wave
traversing unpredictable
landscapes of all altitudes.
Like my mother
and her mother before her,
I will show up at the table
with my song of protest
again and again and again.
.
Andi Stout is an Appalachian writer from West Virginia and the author of Pushcart-nominated, Tiny Horses Don’t Get A Choice. Her work has appeared in ONE Art, The Cardinal Anthology, Mulberry Literary, Variant Literature, The Aerial Perspective, Something Involving A Mailbox!, Northern Appalachian Review, Fire Poetry, Still: The Journal, Junoesq, Long Leaf Pine, Scissors & Spackle, among others. Andi earned her MFA at West Virginia University and currently lives in Pennsylvania.