Violets
By Patrick RosalA brisk sunset walk home: Lafayette Ave.
After weeks straight of triple layers
and double gloves, the day has inched
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I Don’t Know Any Longer Why the Flags Are At Half-Staff
By Hanif Willis-AbdurraqibI 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
Old Blood
By Jennifer Maritza McCauleyBefore they tell us how to look
at our kilt brothers' bodies:
Tell them we already know how to see ‘em.
The Hour Dylann Roof Sat In The Church
By Denice FrohmanBy 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.
God Is Brown
By Lorenzo Herrera y LozanoBrown is the color of my god’s skin.
Gentle, curvy, older than a Spanish whip.
My god abides outside of sin,
no water needed to baptize the newly born.
#flyingwhileblack
By Imani CezanneThere is no moment when I am more reminded of my Blackness
than when I am at an airport walking through TSA
The Security Administration
Whose job it is to keep the planes from terrorism
History
By Linda HoganThis is the word that is always bleeding.
You didn't think this
until you country changes and when it thunders
you search your own body
The Iraqi Nights, Section 7
By Dunya MikhailIn Iraq,
after a thousand and one nights,
someone will talk to someone else.
Markets will open
for regular customers.
Angelitos Negros
By Darrel Alejandro HolnesIn the film, both parents are Mexicans as white as
a Gitano’s bolero sung by an indigena accompanied by the Moor’s guitar
bleached by this American continent’s celluloid in 1948
when in America the world’s colors were polarized into black & blanco.
from THE BLACK MARIA
By Aracelis GirmayBeloved, to
day you eat,
today you bathe, today
you laugh