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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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.
Spratly and Paracel
By Esther LinAfter learning his appointment was canceled
and his senior bus won’t come for another two
hours my father calls from his waiting room
Black Matters
By Keith Wilsonshall i tell you, then, that we exist?
there came a light, blue and white careening,
the police like wailing angels
to bitter me.
Aunty Mary and Her “Friend” Ruth, 1910
By Sarah SansoloYou wear the faded muslin—
did it begin yours or mine?
Everything we have is both.
Everything we are is both,
God Is Brown
By Lorenzo Herrera y LozanoBrown is the color of my god’s skin.
Gentle, curvy, older than a Spanish whip.
My god abides outside of sin,
no water needed to baptize the newly born.
And Still They Come (for Dr. Sue)
By Gordon CashYou scream your bullhorn lies, intimidate,
Harass, respect no law of man. You speak
Of scalpels, sutures, and sterility,
Dismemberment, death by regret, all lies,
And bear false witness with each one against
A Car, A Man, A Maraca
By Charlie BondhusAt the mirror I heft
elbows, belly, cock,
say hematocrit—44.3; hemoglobin—15.2;
neutrophils—62; monocytes—5.
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.