Before going to the Barbershop
By Gabriel RamirezI gotta call my barber Eric to
let him know I’m pullin’ up. Yo hello?
Yea yea who this? ahhhh yo what up homie?
How you been kid?
Search Results
excerpt from “Nation Induced Disorder”
By Mahogany L. Browneif my mother were ever convicted for her addiction like my father I wonder
who I would be robbing now
the data from the Fragile Families Study say
my kind of survival displays more behavioral problems
& early juvenile delinquencies
Walls and Mirrors, Fall 1982
By Deborah ParedezThe English translation of my surname is walls
misspelled, the original s turned to its mirrored
twin, the z the beginning of the sound for sleep.
At the Medicaid Office
By Kit YanThey are giving out Turkeys at the Public Assistance office,
Wrapped in plastic,
The legs folded in, balled for convenience,
You must have had to write your name on a raffle ticket,
I came too late to see the process.
Commodity
By Jeanann VerleeIn a humble, godless house
you moved through youth like any girl.
Dolls & other toys, yours,
in parts.
Calvinist Parents
By Sharon OldsThey put roofs over our heads.
Ours was made of bent tiles,
so the edge of the roof had a broken look,
Requiem
By Melissa TuckeyUnable to sleep,
the blankets wrapped in waves, waves
as tall as dreams,
the dream world trying to make sense
Loving the Enemy
By Caits Meissnerof course there were gaps I kept my eyes
shuddered up my curiosities strapped
amnesia on as a mask but only the dead do not dream.
Harriet Tubman is a Lesbian
By Saida Agostinijabari says fuck that, harriet wasn’t trying turn the underground into henrietta’s. but shit, I want a hero, a full on black queer woman