Karen Wolf has been published in Smokey Blue Literary and Art Magazine, Oasis Journal, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, The Drunken Llama, Blynkt, Raw Dog Press, Street Light Press, Lady Blue Literary Arts Journal, Ripcord Magazine, Endlessly Rocking Poems in Honor of Walt Whitman’s 200th Birthday, and many others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her first chapbook, THAT’S JUST THE WAY IT IS, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018, and her second, TAR SNAKES, by Plan B Press, arrived in 2022.

She says that poetry soothes the savage beast and opens her eyes to the beauty that abounds within the world.

Vapor

Cops terminated his search
for air, basked
in the breeze of exoneration, often following

Eric
and Ramsey, whose camera
rolled: They killed

my friend, someone has to
pay. Deja’s MS will bed
her down tomorrow after this
trek to Rikers. Committed to doing

Ramsey’s time for selling
pot, she bring him
food minus guard-

issue rat
poison, bandages his
bruised eyes with calm

breaths to carry him above
the fumes of justice.

In a Flash

Sister Michelle, doesn’t
my puppy, Benjamin, have

a soul? No
sucked every ounce

of belief from my six-
year-old guy banishing

judgement snakes from
beneath my bed, and a Get

Out of Jail Free card as I nudged the little
iron across the board, while two Oscar Meyer weiners

on Wonder Bread buns
embalmed with Frenches Mustard

instead of fish sticks
floated into my mouth on a Lenten Friday,

and milk-soaked cereal Os drowned the 
spirit within the communion wafer melting

on my tongue at Sunday mass.
Hallelujah.

Baby Blanket

Each stitch deepens
deliberation of her

future. Pink
yarn ensures ballet

and lessons in the kitchen,
never a

No for daddy’s
girl, along with karate and car

maintenance. Will it
bring unwanted advances, lack

of opportunities, uneven
playing

field? Hope secures the stitched
border around the edges

of her approaching
equality, corners reinforced with

the selectivity of a lioness, in
dependence of a queen bee.