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.
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on meeting a brother for the first time
By Keno Evolthe night i was to meet my brother for the first time in 23 years he ain’t show / absence is not what comes up from that memory / more it was the dusk in September / how fog can hide a growl
WITNESS
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
Angelitos Negros
By Darrel Alejandro HolnesIn the film, both parents are Mexicans as white as
a Gitano’s bolero sung by an indigena accompanied by the Moor’s guitar
bleached by this American continent’s celluloid in 1948
when in America the world’s colors were polarized into black & blanco.
Self Portrait with NeoNazi Demonstration
By Lauren K. AlleyneJust like that the day is black
and blue, bruised with hate.
Just like that my skin, black
as fine leather stretches so tight
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
School of the Americas
By Rebecca BlackSergio has ink-pot eyes, girlish wrists.
He draws superheroes extremely well—
Avengers, Wolfman, El Toro Rojo,
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.
So, that you are always sir, dear sir
By Kenji LiuAsk me again why I am here
with this pine, this wild oyamel,
their great succulence of reason
You, machine lyric
and State, every state,
A Wet Daydream
By Nadia SheikhI let Shane Kennedy
reach back in his desk
to fondle my calf,
soft and buttery