The Way As Promised Has Mile Markers To Guide Us
By Dujie TahatPops bought a ‘78 Pontiac,
a firebird-stamped gold bar
on wheels, spontaneously,
after a conversation with
an aunt’s friend—so it went.
Search Results
Princess Powerpuff / Chemical X
By Jasmine Reidi spread at my touch & clit
contemplating my beauty this Monday i live
the pleasure of my fingers
how i am in-the-making by hand
by pill by needle i am the perfect girl
professor, in fact, Chemical X is my love
in gradients of acidity i am
milkless except by oats, by meal made of itself
Sexualwissenschaft
By Miller ObermanPreposition, before location. An indeclinable
word or particle. Indeclinable. That which
cannot be turned aside or shunned. Inevitable,
un-deviating. I practice a kind
of time travel. Bringing beside me
ancestors I never knew existed before,
beneath, under, towards. This travel
unimpacted by time, space or death.
Eohippus
By féi hernandezSimultaneously I am
alone and crowded, this…
the pulsing wound of being extinct,
whole
enough for a morning forage,
yet scant for the onlookers
of lineage,
of nation,
myths in the mulberry tree.
IN ANOTHER LIFE LINK IS A POET
By Summer FarahMy beloved city. We are the lucky ones. We worship a woman immortalized by stone, her trek impossible now. Our realms are severed by sky. Oh, what blood have we forgotten? Even when the sun sets the same monsters patrol our streets.
Black Mermaids and Swimming and Red Hair and Ancestry
By Sasa AakilThey say, Ariel could never be black.
That black folks don't have red hair and can't swim no how.
They list all the reasons we have no right to this title
and I can only think of Hasan.
Brown skin boy with hair red as fire.
Quick wit, quick smile.
Born with sunset resting atop his head like crown.
Mehfil
By Adeeba Shahid TalukderTonight,
the beloved ascends
the rungs of stars;
seated on a mirrored
cushion, she is both spectacle
and witness,
both of the mehfil
and its all-seeing god.
Graveyard Picnic
By Ina Cariñomemory of magnolia on lapels. grandfather’s paper
cheeks pale, teeth whiter than frosted hibiscus.
when I visit the mausoleum, I lay a white cloth on his tomb,
mesh of cobwebs stretched across the buds
The B-Sides of the Golden Records, Track Two: “Sounds of Human Labor”
By Sumita ChakrabortyWe may try to change the shape of your body, or the color of your skin,
or the kinds of sounds that your mouths make, to match how we think you should.