Excerpts
LOVE SONG OF THE GALáPAGOS TORTOISE
I am Lonesome George, the last Galápagos Tortoise of Pinta Island.I see Darwin’s hairy face on T-shirts and hats, backpacks and mugs.I see the statues. I can read the history books if someone turns the pages. I remember Darwin. I was there the day he landed in the ship namedfor a dog with floppy ears. …
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 …
Nayla
There was sun and then there was more sun and more sun. You can’t imagine loss when it’s sunny. Everything reflects, the sides of buildings, dirty, dusty windows offer half a version of a sad tired face. You squint and rooms appear tilted, the sky unbearable, and then when—like a turtle, worm, or whatever it is that …
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 …
The Finger of God
You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm. Hebrews 12:18 It was a warm night in early June—the Midwestern kind of warm specific to spring, the air so thick it’s hard to breathe, so wet it feels as if you’re swimming—when a …
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 …