Herring
By Glenn ShaheenSomebody suggested I buy pickled
Herring in wine sauce— it didn't sound
Like a bad idea, all these conversations
Mired in capital's sloughed-off flesh.
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Choo-choo
By Saúl HernándezThe day Amá stopped driving, her curls became undone,
her red manicure turned pastel pink, her throat lost the sound left in it—
when a car slammed into her, pushing it towards train tracks.
The wheels of her white Oldsmobile clenched to the tracks the way a jaw latches
on to a bite.
Love Machine
By KB BrookinsAll this time I thought we needed permission
to dance. Flap our imaginary wings. Schlep
sweat on our foreheads while making up moves
in every dance scene. My people are good at
dreaming up new grooves in the time it takes
one foot to pick itself up on the soul train.
Apokaluptein
By Hayan ChararaThe Arab apocalypse began around the year
of my birth, give or take—
the human apocalypse,
a few thousand years earlier.
excerpts from “Cajas/Boxes with Zero Tolerance”
By Emmy PérezIn 1930, my tatarabuela still spoke Rarámuri.
Detribalized now as we’ve been from Turtle Island,
south and north of the río grande, west and east
it’s no surprise that we’re still writing about
our identities, brown women regarded
as brown women, they’d say equally as if
a consolation for any.
Machete: Look
By Jasminne MendezIt isn’t easy / to look / at what I have / cut. Which is to say — / wounded / from the body / of a tree / or a woman / or a child.
Un tornillo en el corazón - after @jacobsoboroff
By Lupe Mendezdon’t even know where to start.
you notice when you walk into the shelter — no joke —
a new war.
excerpt from “Cajas/Boxes of Zero Tolerance”
By Emmy PérezThey are the ones who were told their children
were taken to bathe—and not returned. They
are the ones whose nursing babies and toddlers
were forced to wean and left in wet diapers.
ARS POLITICA: HOW TO MAKE ART
By Laurie Ann GuerreroYou must start small as our mothers were small,
our fathers, too, small.
In a pillowcase whip-stitched with roses
or in an old coffee can, collect your abuelos’
teeth; assure them you will not bury them
near the bones of the dog that froze
love isn’t
By Pat Parker (d.)I wish I could be
the lover you want
come joyful
bear brightness