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
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By Alexis SmithersStanding in line, waiting to go into the Library of Congress
a black woman stands two people ahead of me and
a white security guard says to her,
It’s a beautiful day.
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.
Deadlocked
By Brandon DouglasScrolling thru my newsfeed
I saw a snapshot of a klansman with dreadlocks
It baffles me
How loud the white obsession is with blackness
Anti-Ode for the Transportation Security Administration
By torrin a. greathouseThe 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.
You’re So Paranoid
By Franny ChoiA wall of cops moves like a wall of water on a barge no beauty.
A wall of iron swallows the woman who falls to the ground and keeps
falling. There’s a video. The picture stays intact (again).
It’s not pretty, meaning it’s hard to watch.
saturday afternoon
By Kenneth Carroll IIIwe ride in on the red line
our laces coming undone as we float over fair gates
until we fall into a night
ripe
with everything our tongues have been yearning for
excerpt from “Cajas/Boxes of Zero Tolerance”
By Emmy PérezThey are the ones who were told their children
were taken to bathe—and not returned. They
are the ones whose nursing babies and toddlers
were forced to wean and left in wet diapers.
nextdoor app
By Shabnam Piryaeia young man desperately buries himself under damp leaves while helicopters hunt him police laugh as he tries to hide in the foliage a neighbor with a device to eavesdrop on scanners catches this tidbit