For Brown Girls
By Katy Richeymust be tight
spiral wound
corset of rope
be body and
undertaker be
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Dear American Poetry,
By Jan BeattyI see you’re publishing:
straightman/straightman/white white white how
nice.
Are you kidding me?
For Margaret Garner (28 days free until)
By Dominique ChristinaWhen the sun is pitiless
When the girl is a gust of get out fast
When the boys are forced to mingle with the forest
When the baby, still nursing leaves her mother
Are You Listening?
By E. Ethelbert MillerIf I was tree green instead of black
they would come and cut my branches,
destroy my roots, transport my
life and turn me into paper pulp.
what else
By Tanya OlsonWhat else should I want. But to
be a boy. A boy. At his mother’s hip.
A boy between. His father
and the plow. A boy to remain.
What else.
Race/Race
By Martha Collinsstock strain family line
breed blood skin shape
of the head of the pack
Twinkle, Twinkle, Morning Star
By Craig Santos Perezkaikainaliʻi wakes from her late afternoon nap
and reaches for nālani with small open hands—
count how many papuan children
still reach for their disappeared parents—
For the City that Nearly Broke Me
By Reginald Dwayne BettsA woman tattoos Malik’s name above
her breast & talks about the conspiracy
to destroy blacks. This is all a fancy way
to say that someone kirked out, emptied
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
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.