Deadlocked
By Brandon DouglasScrolling thru my newsfeed
I saw a snapshot of a klansman with dreadlocks
It baffles me
How loud the white obsession is with blackness
Search Results
Self-Portrait Of The Black Boi Becoming The Monster He Always Desired To Be
By Malik ThompsonMidnight is my first emotion, then starscream, bloodlust—
an impulse to sink my fangs into the nearest man’s
neck. Shotgun shells explode beneath my window,
dragging me from the grip of a ragged slumber—
the winds of this rotting city drenched in gunsmoke.
Kelly Recalls 1963
By Reuben JacksonI still call
The year 1963
Season of Nightmares
After Medgar Evers
Was killed I
Would lie awake
And wait for
My uncle Joe
To get home
Machete: Look
By Jasminne MendezIt isn’t easy / to look / at what I have / cut. Which is to say — / wounded / from the body / of a tree / or a woman / or a child.
On Teaching Poetry In A Men’s High Security Prison
By Raymond AntrobusI was searched at every edge. I wanted everyone, including me, to be innocent. One inmate squeezed my hand like a letter he’d been hoping for.
Celestial Navigation
By Kathi Wolfe“I am not used to blind poets,”
says the teacher, his Ray-Ban
sunglasses sliding off his nose,
“they’re flying in the dark,
landing who knows where,
right in your face,
in your hair – on your stairs.”
Onomástico
By Jonathan MendozaYou ask me for my name,
and I say, “It’s pronounced Mendoza,”
and again, the Spaniard spits it out my throat,
pats me on the tongue,
tells me I have been a good subject,
and again, I have traded this empire
for my former one.
El Paso Uno
By Hakim BellamyNo one woke up, that Saturday, mourning. / No one woke up that Saturday morning with intentions of becoming a back to school vigil. / No one woke up not expecting to finish out a sophomore year...that had barely be- // gun.
Anti-Ode for the Transportation Security Administration
By torrin a. greathouseThe body scanner says my name & my flesh are suspicious
abandoned baggage. A voice on the loudspeaker says to report
any & all unaccompanied luggage it could contain anything.
Clothes, or drugs, or a body folded economically. Utilitarian
origami. Voice on the speaker says trust no one, says anything
could be a threat.
After all references to transgender Americans are scrubbed from government websites…
By heidi andrea restrepo rhodesfor you are made of light & flesh, voice & shimmer
no amount of scrubbing will eliminate the shine, you
luminesce, your tired heart
lingers in the dusky dawn liminal, blue
is the color of your name, a shade
in view now, harnessed in the eye centuries