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—
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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.”
Death Valley, California
By Jeneva Stoneclose to the Nevada border salt
flats dry beds octagonal or hexed
one constant the wind another
dryness the two wicked all away
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
POLITICS OF AN ELEGY
By Hieu Minh NguyenIf things happen
the way they are supposed to
my mother will die before me.
Gas
By Sarah BrowningAfter the great snow of 2016, my car sits
locked in icy drifts a week, green fossil
of the oil age preserved in graying amber.
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
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Distance
By Ruth Irupé SanabriaMy grandfather asked me: could I remember
him, the park, the birds, the bread?
I’ll be dying soon, he said.
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,