WITNESS
By Ariana Brownyou said you held a gun first / then a girl / & both begged for mercy / & you are afraid / of your own
body / of the hands that are their own haunting / the coal / bursting through / your glowing skin / black
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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.
13 Hours in the Future
By Caits MeissnerI am 13 hours in the future & it is night / the rain is holding her breath
my friend, isn’t Penang opening to us! / a lotus unveiling a carnival
the paper lanterns are skirts / or balls pushed along by tiger’s nose
our smoke is a canon / dare devil on its way to an unnamed star
The Mind in State
By Fady JoudahDoes consciousness exist only when
you name it? Was the double helix a
stranger, the nucleus the first brain?
I feel therefore I am. This is more
Til the Taste of Free in Our Mouths (Brown Baby Lullaby)
By Heidi Andrea Restrepo RhodesWake. Wake.
These the nights we sing. These the folds,
unborn reverie, ambition marbled mud & shine,
raging anthem born like diamonds out darkest ash & rain
from THE BLACK MARIA
By Aracelis GirmayBeloved, to
day you eat,
today you bathe, today
you laugh
For Brown Girls
By Katy Richeymust be tight
spiral wound
corset of rope
be body and
undertaker be
For Margaret Garner (28 days free until)
By Dominique ChristinaWhen the sun is pitiless
When the girl is a gust of get out fast
When the boys are forced to mingle with the forest
When the baby, still nursing leaves her mother
what else
By Tanya OlsonWhat else should I want. But to
be a boy. A boy. At his mother’s hip.
A boy between. His father
and the plow. A boy to remain.
What else.
A Car, A Man, A Maraca
By Charlie BondhusAt the mirror I heft
elbows, belly, cock,
say hematocrit—44.3; hemoglobin—15.2;
neutrophils—62; monocytes—5.