For Brown Girls
By Katy Richeymust be tight
spiral wound
corset of rope
be body and
undertaker be
Search Results
Are You Listening?
By E. Ethelbert MillerIf I was tree green instead of black
they would come and cut my branches,
destroy my roots, transport my
life and turn me into paper pulp.
from Autobiography/Anti-Autobiography
By Jennifer Bartlettto walk means to fall
to thrust forward
to fall and catch
the seemingly random
is its own system of gestures
Twinkle, Twinkle, Morning Star
By Craig Santos Perezkaikainaliʻi wakes from her late afternoon nap
and reaches for nālani with small open hands—
count how many papuan children
still reach for their disappeared parents—
For the City that Nearly Broke Me
By Reginald Dwayne BettsA woman tattoos Malik’s name above
her breast & talks about the conspiracy
to destroy blacks. This is all a fancy way
to say that someone kirked out, emptied
My Father’s Hands / Las manos de mi padre
By Alison Roh ParkMy 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
The Opposite of Holding in Breath—
By Hari Allurithe tea in her glass. It glows the brocade.
Her grandmother picked that tea
on a mountain—a mountain in a war
whose shores were her bed. Steeping, the petals
Kitchen, Donetsk
By Susanna LangShe had planned to offer peaches with the tea.
August was warm; the fruit had ripened to perfection.
She’d placed two paring knives on the cutting board,
set out the teapot with nasturtiums painted on the side.
Nonstop from Fruitvale to Ursa Major: Threnody for Los Desaparecidos* of The United States
By Vincent ToroA 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
The International Fruit of Welcome
By Kim RobertsKim Roberts performs the poem "The International Fruit of Welcome" at the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.