Drought
By Teri Ellen Cross DavisWhen you were inside me I could feel you thrive
your rounded kicks, my body your taut drum.
Now I beat these breasts, betrayed by a landscape
that wilts, a place where even tears won’t come.
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Teri Ellen Cross DavisWhen you were inside me I could feel you thrive
your rounded kicks, my body your taut drum.
Now I beat these breasts, betrayed by a landscape
that wilts, a place where even tears won’t come.
By Taylor JohnsonWhen I again take out more than I have available in my bank
account and I know I shouldn’t to make the rent
I am grateful and lucky to pay there is
a woman on the bus who is the mother or aunt or some loved one of
By Imani CezanneThere is no moment when I am more reminded of my Blackness
than when I am at an airport walking through TSA
The Security Administration
Whose job it is to keep the planes from terrorism
By Ariana Brownyou said you held a gun first / then a girl / & both begged for mercy / & you are afraid / of your own
body / of the hands that are their own haunting / the coal / bursting through / your glowing skin / black
By Aracelis GirmayBeloved, to
day you eat,
today you bathe, today
you laugh
By Katy Richeymust be tight
spiral wound
corset of rope
be body and
undertaker be
By Jan BeattyI see you’re publishing:
straightman/straightman/white white white how
nice.
Are you kidding me?
By Martha Collinsstock strain family line
breed blood skin shape
of the head of the pack
By Jennifer Bartlettto walk means to fall
to thrust forward
to fall and catch
the seemingly random
is its own system of gestures
By Charlie BondhusAt the mirror I heft
elbows, belly, cock,
say hematocrit—44.3; hemoglobin—15.2;
neutrophils—62; monocytes—5.