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—
Search Results
from The Book I Made with a Counselor My First Week of School
By Javier ZamoraHis grandma made the best pupusas, the counselor wrote next to Stick-Figure Abuelita
(I’d colored her puffy hair black with a pen).
Earlier, Dad in his truck: “always look gringos in the eyes.”
Mom: “never tell them everything, but smile, always smile.”
Aubade with Gravel and Gold
By Sally Wen MaoI’m sick of speaking for women who’ve died
Their stories and their disappearances
bludgeon me in my sleep
Water & Salt
By Lena Khalaf TuffahaBehind the walls of your jails we wait
heartbeats audible now, muffled thuds
above the current of blood running thin
In This Place (An American Lyric)
By Amanda GormanThere’s a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the halls
in the quiet beat of the seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
This Is What Makes Us Worlds
By Joshua Jennifer EspinozaLike light but
in reverse we billow.
We turn a corner
and make the hills
Cedar
By Anastacia-Reneethe cedar tree could not comprehend
the crime could not comprehend a leaning
a lynching a love gone wrong
As If Hearing Heavy Furniture Moved on the Floor Above Us
By Jane HirshfieldAs things grow rarer, they enter the ranges of counting.
Remain this many Siberian tigers,
that many African elephants. Three hundred red egrets.
Spratly and Paracel
By Esther LinAfter learning his appointment was canceled
and his senior bus won’t come for another two
hours my father calls from his waiting room
love isn’t
By Pat Parker (d.)I wish I could be
the lover you want
come joyful
bear brightness