Pantoum For The Gyn That Asks If I Really Want More Children
By Peggy Robles-AlvaradoShe insists three kids are more than enough
Puerto Rican Tías are missing wombs
Tells me I’m still young, more than “just a mom”
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Peggy Robles-AlvaradoShe insists three kids are more than enough
Puerto Rican Tías are missing wombs
Tells me I’m still young, more than “just a mom”
By María FernandaWe leave our leather. Finding a spot on Miya’s
living room floor, we untuck our bound things:
a borrowed yoga mat, a stretched hair tie,
By Kimberly BlaeserBeginning with our continent, draw 1491:
each mountain, compass point Indigenous;
trace trade routes, languages, seasonal migrations—
don’t become attached.
By Janice Lobo Sapigaowe don’t know how to pay the bills on time
and we don’t know the password to your bank account
& in all of our languages I understand why you stacked
linens and face towels and rubber bands and plastic bags
in drawers and hallway closets
everything filled to the brim
By Maren Lovey Wright-Kerrwhen the makeup aisle stops at “caramel”
it means
the makeup industry just thinks you already too pretty to need they products
By Kyle Dargan“Man-law” I first violate at age ten—
my wandering fingers not appeased by picking
through my cousin’s video
game cartridges, Sports Illustrateds.
By Justice Ameer/ he asks me how it feels /
it’s no simple curiosity
nor a question without consequence
phantom of longing lingers so
subtly on the last syllable
By Shira ErlichmanThe Former Poet Laureate of the United States
wrote an eighty-nine line poem about clouds & I
want to write about clouds but all I can see
is this bruise on the inside of my inner-elbow the needle left
when posing a question about my toxicity level.
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.
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.