Build You Up

By Alison Roh Park If it were not so scarred from your accidental
rages—uptown, upstate—I would have rested
on the cinder block of your chest.

29 Men

By Heather Davis The lights in your home channel 29 men, their
soot stained clothes, last breaths, crystalline sweat
let loose on black rock

By Gregory Pardlo Unfinished, the road turns off the fill
from the gulf coast, tracing the bay, to follow
the inland waterway.

By Chris August America, don’t we love like oil?
Don’t our slippery arms
Pave the pores of those who need us?

By Remica L. Bingham I enter to find all the students in uniform
occupying a small room.

By Lita Hooper Frederick Lake has been to prison
finished his time
convicted in 1989

By Dan Vera Thurgood whispers in Sonia's ears
You know they said the same things about me?
Master two languages, graduate at the top

By Cornelius Eady A warning one white friend hisses
To the one standing nearest to me
At an Upper West Side newsstand.

By Mark Nowak They took me right down
the hill, and
pulled up in front

By A.B. Spellman florene barco moved
to philadelphia &
on a visit home