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
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love isn’t
By Pat Parker (d.)I wish I could be
the lover you want
come joyful
bear brightness
excerpt from “The Hindrances of a Householder”
By Jennifer BartlettJennifer Bartlett performs an excerpt from "The Hindrances of a Householder" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
Ode to Masturbation
By Ocean VuongOcean Vuong performs the poem "Ode to Masturbation" at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival.
Aunty Mary and Her “Friend” Ruth, 1910
By Sarah SansoloYou wear the faded muslin—
did it begin yours or mine?
Everything we have is both.
Everything we are is both,
Pennsylvania ave SE
By Taylor JohnsonBless the boys riding their bikes straight up, at midnight, touching,
if only briefly, holding, hands as they cross the light to Independence.
Bless them for from the side the one on the red bike looks like me
his redbrown hair loose against the late summer static heat.
The Book of Silence
By Rasheed CopelandWe learned
from the book
of our fathers’ silence
How to make love to your beloved when she grew from rape
By Sarah Maria MedinaLearn to attend the fire, learn that breath between stones & flames lets the fire burn. Notice her breath, give her breath from your mouth, heated from your pink tongue.
Too Pretty
By Sunu P. ChandyOctober on the subway, roses at my side
kids being loud. One skinny girl
with a cap and a pretty smile
gets up to give me her seat
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.