April 1975
By Reuben JacksonShould my black
Flatlander eyes
Lock on the other
Search Results
F.U.B.U.
By Tara BettsI am sitting in a café with my boy
that I have known longer than my
students have been alive, before the birth
Cedar
By Anastacia-Reneethe cedar tree could not comprehend
the crime could not comprehend a leaning
a lynching a love gone wrong
THE AESTHETICS OF SUFFERING
By Christopher SotoI’m his // retired slut // on food stamps // forever
Sniffing horse tranquilizer // seeing digital dreams
Like a kitten // with eyes sewn shut // like syzygy
When Your Word Is a Match
By Joseph RossWhen you walk past Klans-
men, smiling at you
on your way into the court
house, wondering how
Currency
By Fred Joinera pocket can sometimes be
a kind of prison,
I have never lived in
my mother watches her mother’s funeral footage again
By Wo ChanShe closed the doors
and then the blinds
and then her face, midday.
Black Matters
By Keith Wilsonshall i tell you, then, that we exist?
there came a light, blue and white careening,
the police like wailing angels
to bitter me.
on meeting a brother for the first time
By Keno Evolthe night i was to meet my brother for the first time in 23 years he ain’t show / absence is not what comes up from that memory / more it was the dusk in September / how fog can hide a growl
The Pinko Commie Dyke Returns
By Julie Enszerto the place where the idea
of being a pinko commie dyke
first entered her mind,