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Abel

More precisely, the Hebrew is Havel: a breath. His life,
as short and ephemeral as an exhale. Don’t ask
if he was a boy scout, or if some lass from God-knows-
where had her sky blue eyes on him; he was
rubbed out, bumped off, smoked.

His brother, like David after Uriah, tried to Houdini himself
out of blame, thinking murder happened in a vacuum—
both thinking their victims wouldn’t be missed any more
than the sheep they kept.

Havel’s blood cries from the ground because he cannot.

A Lesson in Humility, by Fikos

Fikos is the pseudonym of a Greek street artist who in normal times would be up a ladder with a brush painting public murals. Working indoors during the pandemic, he created this tempera on paper on panel painting in what he calls a “Contemporary Byzantine” style, showing Jesus teaching his disciples the ultimate lesson in humility.

Relocation learning curves

The small bright squares of face instead of chairs
encircling their ideas in classrooms
we once inhabited, our bodies there
attached to mind and chalk. But now there’s Zoom

shrinking the snores or grins to sticker-size—
“thumbs-up,” “applause,” the new epiphany.
And yet, within this safest compromise,
ideas ricochet, insights split sky;

tech heavens open, knowledge tumbles in.
The space has changed; the will to learn remains.
Welcome young Angelous and Ellisons,
Baldwins, Alexies, Frosts, Poes, Plaths, and Cranes.