Baghdad Before the Occupation
By Amal Al-Jubouri—My solitude, to which I always returned
City that kept my secret religion in her libraries
I came back to rest my head on her shoulder
and with just one look, she saw how tired I was
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Leaving My Childhood Home
By Zeina AzzamOn our last day in Beirut
with my ten years packed in a suitcase,
my best friend asked for a keepsake.
I found a little tin box
Bandits
By Hala AlyanYou were mama’s; first and only boy, sable eyelashes long as an ostrich. Operatic, I claimed baba, his books and his sulk, first of the unrequited loves. What we took we took unasked.
The Love for My Culture
By Elexia AlleyneMaybe it’s the Spanish running through my veins
That’s the only way I know how to explain it
Maybe it’s the r’s rrrolling off my tongue
See,
america
By Fatimah Asgharam I not your baby?
brown & not allowed
my own language?
my teeth pulled
things that shine in the night
By Rigoberto GonzálezFulgencio's silver crown--when he snores
the moon, coin of Judas, glaring
at the smaller metals we call stars
my buckle
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
School of the Americas
By Rebecca BlackSergio has ink-pot eyes, girlish wrists.
He draws superheroes extremely well—
Avengers, Wolfman, El Toro Rojo,
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
The Newer Colossus
By Karen FinneyfrockMy feet have been wilting in this salt-crusted cement
since the French sent me over on a steamer in pieces.
I am the new Colossus, wonder of the modern world,
a woman standing watch at the gate of power.