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By Ajanaé Dawkins
what is it ‘bout the river that makes even spirits sing? we hear a laugh & don’t know if its ours or our momma’s; our sister’s or otherworld kin. what current of possibilities. we could splash, laugh, water-dance. hell, we could baptize somebody. wash the wet of us they said would stay dirty our whole lives.
By Mandy Shunnarah
We might have told them, if they’d asked,
the poppies wouldn’t make it to their melancholy
island, no matter how swift their sails snapped
across the sea. Then again, we love our land more
than they love theirs; we long to return, not flee.
That’s why you don’t see us boarding clippers
to claim to ground not ours. With our bountiful
fertile crescent, who needs more plenty?
By Rose Zinnia
a trick
of light
a sleight
of hand
a contused
grammar
By Siaara Freeman
When I say ancestors, let’s be clear:
I mean slaves. I’m talkin’ Tennessee
cotton & Louisiana suga. I mean grave dirt.
By Travis Chi Wing Lau
I shrug off my messenger onto the floor and forget to kiss you when I walk through the door.
By Bianca Lynne Spriggs
Woman,
I get it.
We are strangers,
but I know the heart is a hive
and someone has knocked yours
from its high branch in your chest
By Kazim Ali
I place the peach gummy on my tongue
I have come to Boulder, Colorado with an agenda which is what
It is my intention to rewrite the cosmic legislation which governs time and space to better allow for what I am for now calling the anarchy of sense
By Allison Pitinii Davis
Before him, stickers fade across the bumper:
LAST ONE OUT OF TOWN, TURN OFF THE LIGHTS.
The last employer in Youngstown is the weather:
the truck behind him plows grey snow to the roadside
By Philip Metres
How a Basra librarian
could haul the books each night,
load by load, into her car,
By Kazim Ali
I was whispered along the road at Ache
toward the sun-puddled gate