The Santa Ana
By Paul TranDesert born. Wild
As corn. Dry
Bitch. Itchy clit.
Meteorologists
Measure me
With mercury;
Police with murder rates.
Search Results
In Translation
By Elizabeth AcevedoMy mouth cannot write you a white flag.
It will never be a Bible verse.
My mouth cannot be shaped into the apology
Aaaayeee Babo (Praise God)
By Sonia SanchezThere are women sailing the sky
I walk between them
They who wear silk, muslin and burlap skins touching mine
They who dance between urine and violets
Witnesses
By Ellen BassToday is gray, drizzling,
but not enough for drops to pool
on the tips of the silver needles
or soak the bark of the pines at Ponary—
To the Black Virgin Mary on a Steeple in Greensburg, PA
By Destiny O. BirdsongOr maybe you weren’t. Whenever I’m frightened,
anything can become a black woman in a granite dress:
scaffold for what’s to come: blue lights exploding
like an aurora at the base of the bridge;
Dominion
By Claire HermannGod separated the light from the darkness,
but I have a light switch.
Once there was morning and evening,
but now someone has torn the heart out of a mountain,
L’Chaim
By Nesha RutherL’chaim to my rabbi who gets red in the face during prayer
and sings off-tune
we can always hear him.
Saraswati praises your name even when you have no choice
By Purvi ShahYou had a name no one
could hold between their
teeth. So they pronounced
Cedar
By Anastacia-Reneethe cedar tree could not comprehend
the crime could not comprehend a leaning
a lynching a love gone wrong