Interminable showers, laced with lye
Astringents cascading down fair skin turned pink
By heat and scrubbing —
The forceful scouring that a wok gets after an overlong stir-fry.
No amount of water
Or soap
Or solvent
Can remove the stain
Left behind like a the penumbra of light produced by an explosion.
Choices were made (they said, most passively)
And the consequences remain,
Yawning holes where goodness once grew.
An Open Letter to Councilmember Hugo Soto-MartinezDear Councilmember Soto-Martinez,
The man you replaced, Mitch O’Farrell, was perceived by many as a cynical politician who placed the desires of wealthy real-estate developers over the concerns of the people he was supposed to represent. Sensitive to any perception of impropriety, you’ve made it a point to not accept…
For more than forty years one of our favorite writers, Detroit-based Peter Werbe, has been publishing provocative essays about capitalism, technology, religion, politics, and popular culture in the anarchist journal The Fifth Estate, where he’s long been an indispensable member of the editorial collective. Some of his best work is now organized in a compulsively readable...
