My Father’s Hands / Las manos de mi padre
By Alison Roh ParkMy daddy's hands were scarred
and through the smallest details escaped
years ago I remember them a strong
brown like here is the axe that missed
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At the Mall, There’s a Machine That Tells You If You Are Racist
By Karen SkolfieldIt's right next to a Polariod booth.
The instructions say the needles are small
and barely felt. The pictures, it explains,
have nudity, but no gratuitous nudity.
The Opposite of Holding in Breath—
By Hari Allurithe tea in her glass. It glows the brocade.
Her grandmother picked that tea
on a mountain—a mountain in a war
whose shores were her bed. Steeping, the petals
Kitchen, Donetsk
By Susanna LangShe had planned to offer peaches with the tea.
August was warm; the fruit had ripened to perfection.
She’d placed two paring knives on the cutting board,
set out the teapot with nasturtiums painted on the side.
The Newer Colossus
By Karen FinneyfrockMy feet have been wilting in this salt-crusted cement
since the French sent me over on a steamer in pieces.
I am the new Colossus, wonder of the modern world,
a woman standing watch at the gate of power.
Nonstop from Fruitvale to Ursa Major: Threnody for Los Desaparecidos* of The United States
By Vincent ToroA lung lit like diesel
is not fable or fodder.
Is not sewage siphoned from stern
and starboard. Cuffs, not slapdash plums
plunge from your garden
forge [fawrj, fohrj]
By Leslie Anne Mcilroy(1) to form by heating and hammering; beat into shape, as in the child’s back
burning, shoulders of flame, ribs of shame till she is no longer what she
was, but what you want her to be; 2) to form or make, especially by
concentrated effort, as in pride, see the girl, my girl, take credit, look what I
The Last New Year’s Resolution
By Kazumi ChinThe very last mammoth was just like the others,
except more lonely. The very last tortilla chip
makes me feel guilty.The very last line
of the poem changes everything about
Photo Albums
By Fatimah AsgharThe names of my family members swirl
like dust in my lungs. I try to write about birds
& only pull from my pen animal skin.
My bones alive & a lament of dignified grief
Love at First Sight
By Kathi WolfeIn an elevator trapped
between the fifteenth and sixteenth
floor of her apartment building,
Sunday morning, Elizabeth, her cane