Poetry
Negative Compliment or Contemplations on Racist Rhetoric
You don’t see the back of your own wordsthe ones grazing my face, the almost humin summon on your tongue, to dig a hole& place me in, just so my brown body makessense to you, to lower in your vision, your scoopas to think my bones for collection, for descentas in a placement that you …
A tipsy walk, the walk we took
A tipsy walk, the walk we tookNathaniel Mackey, ‘‘Double Staccato’’ When auntie-mommy walks out of the bathroom, she uses one hand and arm to hold her breasts, and the free hand to cover her poonani. She runs across the room snickering and giggling at herself, her hips shuffling from side to side. When you come …
Three Poems
Memory of a father by Samira Negrouche For Djamal Amrani "Passive as a bird who seesall, in his flight, and keeps in his heartwhile he flies through the sky the consciousnessthat does not forgive" – Pier Paolo Pasolini, Poesia en forma di rosa A memory of a fatherlives in my deep solitudesRimbaud’s solitudesand his …
What It Is to Be Holy
after & for Kaveh An Arab of his country and on his country oncesaid to a boy born in a colony: you too are Arab I can hear it in your voice. We only kneweach other by what was pushed out. He said: you have a psychological map,a pure timeline of 400 years thankful for …
Post Diaspora
Elsewhere, butterflies mean somethingI cannot remember—luck or lifeor death or maybe it depends onwhere the fluttering wings appear.How exhausting (or dangerous)to forget always what means whatwhere. How do you say butterfly?Alitaptap? Tutubi? Or is thatdragonfly? Or lighting bug?How do you say I’m sorry or I miss youor I don’t know how not to forget? * …
Shock Value
The first photo I will show youis one I call Girl at the Meat Market. You will notice her cleaverresting on a tree stump block,the pig's leg she holds with one handas her knife slides up its skin. I will be sure to point outthe bucket of fish eyes near her feet,the goat heads draped across …
Box of Stars
for Sara I hate when the gods leave us.Field of wind, field of wine: a headacheis a loneliness in which to lie down.So one enters sleep every night, a little softer,walks softly over graves. The brightnessin the sky neither the color of rust nor moth.Lucid because we do not yet understand.Though we imagine its …
Cold
It was so cold,the war had frozen over. I could see my breath in the classroom,fluffy like cotton yarn,and my teacher’s,and my high school colleagues’. At home, I’d place my handsover the reading lampto turn them from blueto red. Mom bought fabrics, lining, batting, and snapsand made my brother and me ski costumesto wear to …
Lip Liner to Hillary
I’m worried sick you’ll ditch me. Rumor isSarah Palin’s lips always look plumpbecause her liner’s tattooed, counterfeit.She wakes up with zigzag hair, bad breath, a grump,and fuchsia-outlined lips ready for prom.I hear her trick saved time at campaign stops;unlike your fifteen-minute drill—lip balm,lip primer, me, lipstick, gloss, cotton swabsto even my line—she was done in …