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Reginald Dwayne Betts

Elegy Ending With a Cell Door Closing

By Reginald Dwayne Betts & the Judge told him to count
The trees in the parking lot
Where there were only cars: Zero
The same number of stars
You could see on a night in the city.
Jasminne Mendez

Machete: Look

By Jasminne Mendez It 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.
Raymond Antrobus

On Teaching Poetry In A Men’s High Security Prison

By Raymond Antrobus I was searched at every edge. I wanted everyone, including me, to be innocent. One inmate squeezed my hand like a letter he’d been hoping for.
Jonathan Mendoza

Onomástico

By Jonathan Mendoza You ask me for my name,
and I say, “It’s pronounced Mendoza,”
and again, the Spaniard spits it out my throat,
pats me on the tongue,
tells me I have been a good subject,
and again, I have traded this empire
for my former one.
torrin a. greathouse

Anti-Ode for the Transportation Security Administration

By torrin a. greathouse The body scanner says my name & my flesh are suspicious
abandoned baggage. A voice on the loudspeaker says to report
any & all unaccompanied luggage it could contain anything.
Clothes, or drugs, or a body folded economically. Utilitarian
origami. Voice on the speaker says trust no one, says anything
could be a threat.
Ching-In Chen

Lantern Letter: a Zuihitsu

By Ching-In Chen My people – I see you across street, porch people, huddled under brick archway, watching what pours from sky. Wading in water, what circuits it carries – mostly numb, small, what might feel like circuit’s end.
Lupe Mendez

Un tornillo en el corazón - after @jacobsoboroff

By Lupe Mendez don’t even know where to start.
you notice when you walk into the shelter — no joke —
a new war.
Meg Day

Origin Calling

By Meg Day In the dangerous years
everyone took lovers

but us.
Rasha Abdulhadi

Picking up Rocks

By Rasha Abdulhadi daughter of a palestinian that i am,
when i see a bloc of young people holding the street
it seems i was born with a rock in my hand
against a line of police in battle gear—
and i’ve found the world expects that’s who i am.
Julian Randall

Negrotopia #3 (Self Portrait as Heaven)

By Julian Randall Cue the Anthony Hamilton/and name me a mansion/tell everyone there is space here/if you
​ believe in the reincarnated/I am already somewhere/that somebody has gone/
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