A Patch of Blue in Tenleytown

By L. Lamar Wilson She ambles about this Mickey-Dee kitchen’s din,
unmoved by the hot grease threatening
her ¿puedo tomar su orden? mask.

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Self-Portrait as Vincent Van Gogh in the Asylum at Arles

By Roger Reeves The moths in the orchard squeal
with each pass of the mistral wind.
Yet the reapers and their scythes,
out beyond the pear trees, slay wheat

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Don’t Even Pretend (The Saturn Poem)

By Peter J. Harris Saturn's rings was all nappy
spread out from her head
like she just woke up
took a shower & aint dried them yet

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THE INAUGURATION OF EXPERIMENTS, December 1845

By Bettina Judd Lucy didn’t scream like most. Though sometimes she
would moan--deep, long and overdue. I’d wake
thinking death. It’s her, knees curled under, head face
down, her body trying to move out of itself. Anarcha

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Zyklon B

By Julie Enszer The painters call before we move into the new house. Ma’am, they say— 
I am not old enough to be a ma’am, but I don’t correct them—
Ma’am, they say, we smell gas. 
I dismiss their concern. I say, Keep painting. 

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Hikmet: Çankiri Prison, 1938

By Joshua Weiner Today is Sunday.
Today, for the first time, they let me go out into the sun.
And I stood there I didn't move,
struck for the first time, the very first time ever:

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First Morning Poem

By Allison Adelle Hedge Coke In a room facing chimneys
over the place Nancy Morejón rests
between sleeps lining free lines
she whispers to hearing DC:

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Amistad

By Abdul Ali My father and I run into each other at the edge of Lower Manhattan,
World Trade Center, where there’s a movie house.

We tiptoe down the slope, making our way to our seats.

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