For My Cousin Manny Who Died in Prison
By Cintia Santanainside
a cell
a heart
(my cousin’s)
inside
his heart
(inside
a cell)
a cluster
of cells
arrested
Search Results
Hope is a Bruise
By Dasha Kelly HamiltonPaintball pellets batter shoulders
and thighs at 190 miles per hour
I count the purplish bruises and
smile at the post vision of us toasting
Ghosts of Abolition
By Carlos Andrés Gómezwhisper through tear gas—
remind of the original
patrols, ruddy-cheeked
Breaking & Entering
By Darrel Alejandro HolnesOnly beasts are supposed to hibernate.
But this brother has been lying there
for years. Truth isn’t a news headline.
Poem on Disappearance
By Kimberly BlaeserBeginning with our continent, draw 1491:
each mountain, compass point Indigenous;
trace trade routes, languages, seasonal migrations—
don’t become attached.
The Proper Way to Prepare the U.S. Flag
By Carmin WongStart with something simple: 13 loosely lingering light-hearted lines that eventually morph / into crowbars ★ corps ★ prison cells ★ bylines.
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Skybridge Rendering Above Minneapolis & the West Bank
By Tarik DobbsChorus: Like a bridge over troubled water…
For years, settlers longingly, vertical, build over us, Starbucks has no sinks. Will we go? Lately, the bridge, their throne. When even these are somewhere to watch from, to drop a knee & propose somewhere to feel for a bank.
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ma’am, i’m sorry to tell you, your son is d-
By Darius Simpsondangerously good at freeze tag, like ghost good
drenched in red puddles, but on his way
down by the gutter river
darkskin
By Maren Lovey Wright-Kerrwhen the makeup aisle stops at “caramel”
it means
the makeup industry just thinks you already too pretty to need they products
Post-Assault Prescription When I Fear My Spirit Dying
By Diana TokajiHere in the mud
of my history
beneath the rage
is counsel.