Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash
Let me be
brief: by the end of this,
someone will be cursed & I pray it anyone
but Him. Let me start
again: the night was beautiful but not
romantic. S…
Poetry
Maher Naji, Christ Has Not Yet Descended from the Cross / Courtesy of the artist Years and years ago, I was small, very small. I was one of the children of the world who were born and thos…
Asma Ghanem / Courtesy of the artist Hunger strike, fortieth day* Your bodies flutter on the ceiling of the room I can see your slow gestures the small bones in the joints of your hands y…
Mohamed Masri / Courtesy of the artist I Write the Land I want to write the land, I want the words to be the land itself. But I’m just a statue the Romans carved and the Arabs forgot. Colonizers…
Motaz Azaiza / Courtesy of the artist My Sixteen-Year-Old Mother What is my eightysomething mother doing under these conditions? She watches the situation behind the glass Once the rain stops, she…
Khair Alah Salim / Courtesy of the artist Scene 1 – Operation Sperm in Womb Think of her As they loosen your chains As they lower you down As the soles of your feet Touch the bloodstained ground…
The nuns teach us Quran, or rather they teach us how to read with fire at the heels of our feet. I behold daybreak, my father lively with god. He is good and so I am good. On Fridays I pop up from…
Imad Abu Shtayyah, Rise Up / Courtesy of the artist Maybe this very morning is suitable for forgetting you and forgetting once and for all your flowers and gardens Maybe this doorstep i…
Samia Halaby, Centers of Attraction / Courtesy of the Artist. Innocent when questioned, quick to take flight when afraid, magnet for the heart approaching like a Nazarene lamb You…
Photo by owtana on Unsplash father inside my coat it is only after i lose my wallet that i find father inside my coat. he is holding a long and slender cigarette between his teeth. dear father inside…
Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash worldlittoday · “Festival,” by Derek Chung The festival is here we play football by the door Even in a tight space my son can nail a kickoff Skilled at the…
Yielbonzie Johnson, Passages (2020), 16 x 20 in., watercolor/acrylic mix on paper / Courtesy of the Artist after Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool” this no parade for your pleas…
Photograph depicting a railroad track destroyed by fire during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. / Courtesy of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum Every hour or so a train tears in like a trumpet, b…
Courtesy of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum things to teach my son Tulsa, June 1, 1921 how to hold the line at first street. no escape how to tramp backyard gardens how to spot hid…
Crystal Z Campbell, Notes from Black Wall Street (Soft, Receptive, and Absolute), 2019, mixed media on wood, 30 x 20 inches / Courtesy of the artist Can a weed be humble bashful, sensitive,…
Gordon Parks, Untitled, Harlem, New York, 1952, courtesy of and © the Gordon Parks Foundation oklahoma sun an oppressive neighbor in august 1920. churchgoers settle after-dinner stomachs.…
Photo by Greg Rakozy / Unsplash You cannot see the Mothership in space, It and She being made of the same thing. All our mothers hover there in the ceaseless blue-black, watching it ripple and dim…
Greenwood, by Jimmy Friday, 24 x 36 in. Magazine clippings on poster board. It was the day of brutal winds, all of them ganging up to blow injustice down. They sang the changing weather. I w…
Courtesy of the Greenwood Cultural Center Lord, he was born a pesky question. Know he always wore the danger hour of dusk. The white folks named his skin impossible. He teetered, balanced on the N…
“Chinese Factory” by danielfoster437 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Chinese Workers I am a Chinese worker Our revolutionary comrades are found in every corner of the Earth Perhaps consciousl…
I settle my body and soul down in this small town Its lychee orchards, its streets A little deck in the assembly line The rain wets my head, again and again I rest my ideals, love, dreams, and yo…
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge / Unsplash Fingertips Can you feel how the tips of my fingers vibrate in a scream? I am a simple woman of autumn, flesh tanned from the end of summer leaves me longing for…
Photo by Samuel Scrimshaw / Unsplash [Untitled] We lived on the edge of a poisonous swamp black alligators bathed in it every morning the exhaust tubes clamored and at noon we…
Caption We received our Canadian citizenship at the immigration office between Costco and the highway. For the ceremony we were asked to turn off our phones. We raised our right hand. Swore alle…
Photo by Barbara Zandoval on Unsplash A Poem for Nitzan I smuggled you across the border, that no hand of those who find joy in their labor might touch you no hand of those dealing in blood, t…
