Spring 2020 At first light they start. The latest scourge has cometo me by computer screen:digital images and soundsof the breathless, the dying.Voices of the millionsgathered in revolt. Removedby two hours from New York,I am […]
Category: Poetry
When He Sold The Combine
He threw in the farm he envisioned,a thick shawl of trees surroundingstraight seams of feed corn,cattle dotting generous pastures. He tossed in the househe’d never have with a wifedeported, everything sold to paya lawyer who […]
Cold fire
Cities are ablaze,ablaze with shame,babies born into skinmade wrong, sorekeening for theirmothers, sisters ofliberty done crying,wring our woesto their rhythm. Cities are ablaze,ablaze with shame,throats ripped inbroad daylight ona busy city street,sisters of libertydone crying,wring […]
I Know This is Muy Dificil
“Breathe Keep breathing I can’t do this Alone”— Thomas Edward Yorke Keep exhaling, let the pen,marker black, scratching outwords on the page be yourvoz. With each erasuremi compañera tu siemprestar skyward while recreatingbreaths, clouds once […]
Two Poetic Fragments from Landsmoder by Elena Salamanca [trans. Ryan Greene]
Translator’s Note: These poetic excerpts come from Elena Salamanca’s book Landsmoder, which was written for a performance she staged in 2011 where, dressed like a “president’s wife,” she mounted a national monument in San Salvador […]
Two Poems by Lana I. Ghannam
Dark Matter the townsfolk sing we shall overcomewhile hope bleeds slowly from my mouth—Lucille Clifton, “jasper texas 1998” Another black man was shot last week,his life a toll in the streets. People pitched hope with […]
Two Poems by R.K. Fauth
Queer Utopia It’s April. I watch you shoot arrowsfrom a smooth-carved cherrywood bow. The target is a rope gongwhose center keeps movingbecause of the breeze, and your arrowsbounce in the grass. We talkabout nothing, and […]
Two Poems by Thea Swanson
Uncle No one wants to go there. We have to tread light, write the perversion with metaphors, pen how flowers were crushed by boots. We have to whisper our travesties to therapists, guard the ears […]
Two Poems by Matthew E. Henry
an open letter to the white teacher who threw a Black boy out of her class for wearing too much lotion his skin was ashy. perhaps that’s a conceptyou’re unfamiliar with—like seasoned chickenand leaving vegetables […]
Seven Daughters
Josephina is born with the notched penny her mother swallowed as a childtucked in the folds of her chin. So beautiful, she charms the midwife and winksat her husband. Always the one to pick the […]
