Maybe it’s Merlot

by Riley Londraville ’27 on December 11, 2025

Portfolio - Poetry

The cafe’s website read: Bring in a nonperishable food or a personal care item, we’ll cover half
your tab, and we’ll match your donation, item for item.

A chance she couldn’t pass up. The girl notices a stain on the cement outside the cafe and
wonders where it came from. It could be red wine or something more sinister. Inside, she takes
note of the pin on the jacket of the man who stands in front of her. Make America Great Again.

She wonders when it was so great.

Yesterday, she had watched footage from 1963 in Birmingham, AL. The Children’s Crusade. Torn skin and flesh flushed. Pressure piercing through fire hoses. Justice too long delayed is justice denied.

And later, she saw a video filmed by shaky hands. Skin is still torn on pavement today. Rusted
stains leaving people wondering: Is it red wine or something more sinister?

“Ma! Ma!” the boy cried out, trying to stabilize the camera. Useless evidence without due
process. He sounds young, although the youth in his voice could be his primal fear taking over, deprivation of nurture on the line as his mother’s face scrapes across cement and crimson fills the cracks. Pebbles stab in her skin and her mouth and her palms.

“I have papers,” she says to nobody. The ICE agent readjusts his mask. It almost slipped while he was just doing his job. Making America Great Again.

In line, the girl holds a can of chicken breast that her grandma had sent her to college with.

“You’ll need it,” her grandma said, but the girl didn’t believe she would open the can. They were both right. This was the last day of the promotion. A nine dollar coffee becomes $4.50, and a family without their regular SNAP benefits can have some canned chicken breast. What she refused to eat is another’s fortune. Justice too long delayed is justice denied.

At the counter, she asks the barista for a latte

“Hot or iced?”

Anything but ice.

Make America Great Again.

The barista tells her she can drop her can in the box up front with the rest. Aluminum spills out of cardboard, but she had hoped for more. It’s been eight days without money loaded onto EBT cards, and the president threw a party. Jewels drip from skin in giant glasses. Flappers strutting by, their lavish headpieces held high. Feathers float to the floor as the billionaires grin and mothers can’t buy formula. The girl just learned that children make up 39 percent of all SNAP benefit recipients. Another Children’s Crusade. Justice too long delayed is justice denied.

The girl walks past the stained cement on her way out. She hopes it’s red wine, not something more sinister. She wonders if those billionaires would notice, if their expressions would even change. They’re too far gone, she decides. Drunk with greed, their stoned faces would stay cold as ice.

Make America Great Again.

Global Citizen Live 2021 Combines Music and Social Justice

by The Cowl Editor on October 7, 2021

A&E - Music

Global Citizen Live 2021 Combines Music and Social Justice

Musicians, Activists Come Together for a Good Cause

Madison Palmieri ’22

On Saturday, Sept. 25, hundreds of today’s most talented musical artists from all genres, as well as a smattering of celebrities, donated their time to come together for Global Citizen Live 2021—even though they were not all in the same place.

The festival took place across six continents over the course of 24 hours with the intent of raising awareness for worldwide issues such as poverty, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It was scheduled to coincide with the UN General Assembly and G20 Climate Meetings. These are two important gatherings whose participants’ decisions have the potential to impact the issues Global Citizen is concerned with.

The organization was founded in 2008 with the goal of eradicating the most extreme forms of poverty by 2030. This year, however, it has focused on its “Recovery Plan for the World,” which seeks to end the pandemic through governmental and private sector aid that creates an “equitable global recovery.”

The concerts were held in venues including The Great Lawn in New York City’s Central Park and Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre. Other notable locations included London and Paris. At each venue, attendees were treated to unique, memorable performances from their favorite artists.

In Central Park, Camilla Cabello took the stage to perform “Havana” before her boyfriend and fellow singer Shawn Mendes joined her for a swoon-worthy rendition of their duet, “Senorita.” Billie Eilish dazzled fans with a set comprised of songs from her new album, Happier Than Ever. She also brought out her brother and frequent collaborator, FINNEAS, to perform a duet of “Your Power.”

In between the musical performances, celebrities took to the stage, calling for social and political activism. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, for instance, expressed the need for vaccine equity across the globe.

While the evening was filled with many outstanding performances, the most magical moments came during Coldplay’s set. They first performed their perpetually-tear-jerking hit “Fix You” with Eilish and FINNEAS in the twilight before inviting Cabello and Mendes back onstage to sing “Yellow,” another one of their classic tunes. For the grand finale, BTS appeared in hologram form for a bilingual performance of their new collaboration with Coldplay, “My Universe.”

In L.A., fans were treated to 5 Seconds of Summer’s first live performance in almost two years, opening with their 2014 smash hit, “She Looks So Perfect” and closing with their more recent chart-topper, “Youngblood.” Demi Lovato and Adam Lambert performed a rendition of “Mad World” and H.E.R. joined Stevie Wonder for a duet of “Superstition.”

In between sets, members of the Los Angeles Fire Department came onstage to share their harrowing personal experiences fighting wildfires in the hopes of raising awareness of how climate change leads to these devastating fires.

To close out the night, One Republic brought everyone back to the early 2010s for a crowd-pleasing rendition of their hit “Counting Stars.”

Across the pond, acts such as Duran Duran and Kylie Minogue performed in London; Ed Sheeran, Elton John, Black Eyed Peas, Doja Cat, Charlie Puth, and others took to the stage in Paris.

At all these venues and others, concertgoers, performers, and guest speakers alike were overjoyed to be back together in person. With the awareness generated by Global Citizen Live, hopefully they will soon be able to celebrate advancements in the social, political, economic, and environmental movements that Global Citizen champions.