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By Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib
I think I am breaking up with memory. again. I live
by only that which will still allow me
to do the living. The flag, for example, reminds me
to either feel fear or sadness, depending on how high
By Jennifer Maritza McCauley
Before they tell us how to look
at our kilt brothers' bodies:
Tell them we already know how to see ‘em.
By Denice Frohman
By now, you know their names, their cheekbones—
the tender hands they offered when you walked in.
You know the quivering strength of prayer and the art of making God listen.
How faith can summon weary backbones into pyramids.
By Teri Ellen Cross Davis
When you were inside me I could feel you thrive
your rounded kicks, my body your taut drum.
Now I beat these breasts, betrayed by a landscape
that wilts, a place where even tears won’t come.
By Mahogany L. Browne
the best time i had as a teenager
included a bottle of cisco and a sideshow
at the uptown gas station.
after Kenny’s body was bludgeoned by his girlfriend & her two brothers
By Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes
Wake. Wake.
These the nights we sing. These the folds,
unborn reverie, ambition marbled mud & shine,
raging anthem born like diamonds out darkest ash & rain
By Alison Roh Park
My daddy's hands were scarred
and through the smallest details escaped
years ago I remember them a strong
brown like here is the axe that missed
By Vincent Toro
A lung lit like diesel
is not fable or fodder.
Is not sewage siphoned from stern
and starboard. Cuffs, not slapdash plums
plunge from your garden
By Fatimah Asghar
The names of my family members swirl
like dust in my lungs. I try to write about birds
& only pull from my pen animal skin.
My bones alive & a lament of dignified grief
By Aracelis Girmay
When the boys are carnivals
we gather round them in the dark room
& they make their noise while drums
ricochet against their bodies & thin air