Across the Street from the Whitmore Home for Girls, 1949
By Rachel McKibbensThe Mad Girls climb the wet hill,
breathe the sharp air through sick-green lungs.
The Wildest One wanders off like an old cow
Search Results
I Will Not
By Kathy Engelwrite about the killing of Troy Davis or
the years he claimed innocence so many times
the words fell from his mouth like drops of honey.
Belly Song
By Kathleen HellenI sit in the front row of
bleachers -- cheap seats for greater grief.
My son
Can Safety Matches Make Us Safe?
By Judith ArcanaYou read the tiny cardboard book before
you scratch the strip under Augie's New Pizza
on the back of MIA:We still don't know
Verga
By Robin Coste LewisBefore leaving her they put stones in her vagina
The men will only be raped but the stones will be killed
The bush caught many men to go into the stones
Laundry
By Alicia OstrikerJust finished folding laundry. There's the news. A slender prisoner, ankles shackled, nude back and legs striped by a brown substance you might take for blood but which probably is feces, hair long, arms extended at shoulder level like a dancer or like Jesus, walks toward a soldier with rolled-up pants and a gun, posed legs akimbo in the tiled corridor. I cannot say from the image if the soldier is smiling, too few pixels to tell.
Hanover County Jail, Commonwealth of Virginia
By Bonnie NaradzayLunch today for the inmates means white bread
and a slice of baloney. Dinner is more of the same.
The limit now - two meals a day to stay in budget.
Rubber Dollie
By Scott HightowerLike a dancer covered in nothing
but white powder, then sponged
with coarse brown makeup;
Rain Dance
By Rashida James-Saadiyawe scatter
dodge words that rip into flesh
hide from clenched fist