Aubade with Gravel and Gold
By Sally Wen MaoI’m sick of speaking for women who’ve died
Their stories and their disappearances
bludgeon me in my sleep
Search Results
To the Black Virgin Mary on a Steeple in Greensburg, PA
By Destiny O. BirdsongOr maybe you weren’t. Whenever I’m frightened,
anything can become a black woman in a granite dress:
scaffold for what’s to come: blue lights exploding
like an aurora at the base of the bridge;
etheree for black women
By JP Howardblack women we be trying to hold worlds
on our backs, in our hearts without fail
some days we fail at perfection
Saraswati praises your name even when you have no choice
By Purvi ShahYou had a name no one
could hold between their
teeth. So they pronounced
House of the Rising
By Samantha ThornhillGive thanks to your mansion
of a mama in that cold square room
the push and pull
of breath that brought
Enough!
By Luis Alberto AmbroggioPoetry might never have seen
that categorical word,
but in its charged belligerence
of emotions and in its profound determination,
Song of the Exiles
By Holly KarapetkovaThere never was a garden
only a leaving:
miles and miles
of footprints in the dirt.
Violets
By Patrick RosalA brisk sunset walk home: Lafayette Ave.
After weeks straight of triple layers
and double gloves, the day has inched
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—