Poem by Len Kuntz

Order of Protection

It’s as quiet as snow
in the faux-mahogany courtroom,
packed with assorted criminals
waiting to have their say,
mitigate a speeding ticket
or seat-belt violation,
but first the cases are heard,
and that’s you,
frail yet trying not to appear broken,
taking a seat
at one edge of the bench
with your boyfriend at the other end,
neither of you meeting eyes, of course,
because yours is bruised plum
and the judge knows why
and says so without using those words,
granting you an order of protection
as you stand and walk out with me
into the sun scalding both our faces
like a faulty oven mitt
whose only job is
saving skin being burned.

Len Kuntz is a writer from Washington State and an editor at the online magazine Literary Orphans. His story collection The Dark Sunshine debuted from Connotation Press in 2014.

Ira Joel Haber was born and lives in Brooklyn. He is a sculptor, painter, writer, book dealer,photographer and teacher. His work has been seen in numerous group shows bothin the USA and Europe and he has had 9 one man shows including several retrospectives of his sculpture. His work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York University, The Guggenheim Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum,The Albright-Knox Art Gallery & The Allen Memorial Art Museum. Since 2006 His paintings, drawings, photographs and collages have been published in over 230 on line and print magazines. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, two Pollock-Krasner grants, the Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grant and, in 2010, he received a grant from Artists’ Fellowship Inc. He currently teaches art to retired public school teachers at The United Federation of Teachers program in Brooklyn.