When it rains, I dance

When the sun shines, I dance

Through it all, I will dance

She says she doesn't deprive herself,

but I've learned to find nuance in every movement of her fork.

In every crinkle in her brow as she offers me the uneaten pieces on her plate.

Maybe this is why my house feels bigger each time I return; it's proportional.

As she shrinks the space around her seems increasingly vast.

I learned to absorb.

I took lessons from our mother in creating space around myself.

I never meant to replicate her, but

spend enough time sitting across from someone and you pick up their habits.

That's why women in my family have been shrinking for decades.

We all learned it from each other, the way each generation taught the next how to knit.

Picking up all the habits my mother has unwittingly dropped like bits of crumpled paper from her pocket on her countless trips from bedroom to kitchen to bedroom again.

Watching the struggle I either mimic or hate her,

And I don't want to do either anymore,

I don't know the requirements for my sociology major because I spent the entire meeting deciding whether or not I could have another piece of pizza,

a circular obsession I never wanted, but

inheritance is accidental,

still staring at me with wine-soaked lips from across the kitchen table.

hen you do think you’re the girl from the song i guess i see the parallel i am brown like her i am always halfway gone like her i’m not as cruel but i have tried it’s just like the lyric says

i can’t sing but it goes فيه الغربة إيه عملة الأسمراين طمنوين reassure me how is the browngirl what has distance done to her

in khartoum’s bright yellow morning my grandfather brings me the season’s first mangoes & tells me it is time to come home they are firm & green but on the inside all sunlight i use my hands & spill the juice all down my front i fill my mouth & i do not answer

here i am little dagger ready to make a home in your shirt pocket answer me answer me (“first interview for the position of

i grew & my rift grew & another sudan was missing

the dead boy is poured back into his body i try to leave home but the ocean bares its teeth & where i’m from is where i’m from & not where i was put it’s morning & my grandmother pins hot colors to the clothesline i’m still on a date & the words say something to me in arabic fall backwards down his throat

& anyone can be the girl he says browngirl & never says how brown he’s been dead my whole life he’s used up he’s eulogizing home he’s eulogizing my mother as a girl not yet filled up with children he sings & she’s the browngirl

he dies before she’s hurt he dies before belonging he belongs to no one country [same] he belongs to no one language [check my mouth] he belongs to no one in this way he never leaves

look i’m a sad girl from a long line of sad girls doesn’t mean you can talk to me that way

The size of it made us all laugh.

I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—

They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,

As ordinary things often do

Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.

This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.

I did all the jobs on my list

And enjoyed them and had some time over.

I love you. I’m glad I exist.

— Wendy Cope

of loose morals, never from a

decent family. father distraught

by the Jamaican boyfriend.

streetwalking the red light.

very, you know,

frightening.

within a respectable working class

to look at dead whores

is just too dark.

the ones that shock, 

perfectly innocent 

a bright future taken 

only sixteen, a young lass

so beautiful, such a waste.

worrying for the mothers,

though a pretty death makes it easier.

no one wants 

to dig a grave

for the proper girls that live here. 

please let the deer

on the highway

get some kind of heaven

Something with tall soft grass

and sweet reunion

Let the moths in the poach lights

go some place

with a thousand suns,

that taste like sugar

and get swallowed whole.

May the mice

in oil and glue

have forever dry, warm fur

and full bellies.

If I am killed simply for living,

let death be kinder

than man.

Bracing in a small stall. As if a bird

Could grow without breaking its shell.

As if the clatter of a thousand black

Birds whipping in a storm could be held

In a shell. Inside me is a huge black

Bull balled small enough to fit inside

The bead of a nipple ring. I mean to leave

A record of my raptures. I was raised

By a beautiful man. I loved his grasp of time.

My mother shaped my grasp of space.

Would you rather spend the rest of eternity

With your wild wings bewildering a cage or

With your four good feet stuck in a plot of dirt?

What does it mean to want an age-old call

for change

not to change

and yet, also,

to feel bullied

by the call to change?

How is a call to change named shame,

named penance, named chastisement?

How does one say

what if

without reproach? The root

of chastise is to make pure.

The impossibility of that—is that

what repels and not

the call for change?

ii

There is resignation in my voice when I say I feel

myself slowing down, gauging like a machine

the levels of my response. I remain within

so sore I think there is no other way than release—

so I ask questions like I know how

in the loneliness of my questioning.

What’s still is true; there isn’t even a tremor

when one is this historied out.

I could build a container to carry this being,

a container to hold all, though we were never

about completeness; we were never to be whole.

I stand in your considered thoughts also broken,

also unknown, extending

one sentence—here, I am here.

As I’ve known you, as I’ll never know you,

I am here. Whatever is

being expressed, what if,

I am here awaiting, waiting for you

in the what if, in the questions,

in the conditionals,

in the imperatives—what if.

iii

What if over tea, what if on our walks, what if

in the long yawn of the fog, what if in the long middle

of the wait, what if in the passage, in the what if

that carries us each day into seasons, what if

in the renewed resilience, what if in the endlessness,

what if in a lifetime of conversations, what if

in the clarity of consciousness, what if nothing changes?

​​​​​​​

iv

​​​​​​​

What if you are responsible to saving more than to changing?

What if you’re the destruction coursing beneath

your language of savior? Is that, too, not fucked up?

You say, if other white people had not . . . or if it seemed like

not enough . . . I would have . . .

What if—the repetitive call of what if—is only considered repetitive

when what if leaves my lips, when what if is uttered

by the unheard, and what if

what if is the cement of insistence

when you insist what if

this is.

​​​​​​​

v

What is it we want to keep conscious, to stay known, even as we

say, each in our own way, I so love I know I shrink I’m asked

I’m also I react I smell I feel I think I’ve been told I remember I see I didn’t I thought I felt I failed I suspect I was doing I’m sure I read I needed I wouldn’t I was I should’ve I felt I could’ve I never I’m sure I ask . . .

You say and I say but what

is it we are telling, what is it

we are wanting to know about here?

​​​​​​​

vi

What if what I want from you is new, newly made

a new sentence in response to all my questions,

a swerve in our relation and the words that carry us,

the care that carries. I am here, without the shrug,

attempting to understand how what I want

and what I want from you run parallel—

justice and the openings for just us.

you must care what they think.

If you care what they think,

how will you not hate them,

and so become a monster

of the opposite kind? From where then

is love to come—love for your enemy

that is the way of liberty?

From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go

free of you, and you of them;

they are to you as sunlight

on a green branch. You must not

think of them again, except

as monsters like yourself,

pitiable because unforgiving.

when i think of us i think of the lakewater

near longtown, what might not technically

constitute a lake but i prefer that word for

the open mouth of its vowel, how it called

us to its throat & held us there, in the sun,

the high points of our faces slick with light

& its arc around our shoulders, the soft

gathering of flesh around our knees,

the lone chair we found near the shore

where we took turns posing, jutting out

an eloquent hip, cackling in the bright language

of flowers for whom i downloaded an app

& learned their names: beautyberry, yarrow,

cornus florida, black-eyed susan, & you,

& you, my bright hibiscus, my every color

laughing as they ladle out our food. All those who stand up for what is right. There are so many ways to change the world. The mechanic and miner, mail carrier, cashiers and clerks. Singers, farmers, and truckdrivers. I can see them. I imagine their sore shoulders and tired legs. I thank them for carrying me, even when I didn’t know. ___ We carry each other, from Pine Mountain to the Pennyroyal. Past tulip poplars and goldenrods. From city streets to holler roads, from the wide Ohio to the quickening creeks of the Gorge, we go forward, together. We lift our neighbors from Hickman to Hindman, Mayfield to Louisville, Cadiz, Cumberland Falls, Falls of Rough, from the Bluegrass to Bowling Green. Eminence to Independence. Lawrence, Laurel, LaRue, I will carry you. Kentucky, we walk a ways together, no matter if it is in cold rain or moonlight. Sometimes the only music is hammers and saws, but we keep going, aiming for the high ground where they will be standing with their arms out, saying Come here, and rest. Let me help you.

Read more at: https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article283005968.html#storylink=cpy

separate the things from a man the man from the things is a man still the same without his reins here it rains every fifteen minutes it would be foolish to

marry a man without an umbrella did Cinderella really love the prince or just the prints on the curtains in the ballroom once I went window-

shopping but I didn’t want a window when do you know it’s time to get a new man one who can win more things at the fair I already have four stuffed

pandas from the fair I won fair and square is it time to be less square to wear something more revealing in North and
South she does the dealing gives him

the money in the end but she falls in love

with him when he has the money when he is still running away if the water is running in the other room is it wrong

for me to not want to chase it because it owns nothing else when I wave to a man I

love what happens when another man with

a lot more bags waves back

are not mythological

we are starving

or eating salty cakes

made of clay

because in 1804 we felled

our former slave captors

the graceless losers sunk

vindictive yellow

teeth into our forests

what was green is now

dust and everyone knows

trees unleash oxygen

(another humble word

for life)

they took off

with our torn branches

beheaded our future

stuck our breath up on pikes

for all the world to see

we are a living dead example

of what happens to warriors who

in lieu of fighting for white men's countries

dare to fight

for their own lives

during carnival

we could care less

about our bloated empty bellies

where there are voices

we are dancing

where there is vodou

we are horses

where there are drums

we are possessed

with joy and stubborn jamboree

but when the makeshift

trumpet player

runs out of rhythmic breath

the only sound left is

guts grumbling

and we sigh

to remember

that food

and freedom

are not free

is haiti really free

if our babies die starving?

if we cannot write our names

read our rights keep

our leaders in their seats?

can we be free? really?

if our mothers are mud? if dead

columbus keeps cursing us

and nothing changes

when we curse back

we are a proud resilient people

though we return to dust daily

salt gray clay with hot black tears

savor snot cakes

over suicide

we are hungry

creative people

sip bits of laughter

when we are thirsty

dance despite

this asthma

called debt

congesting

legendarily liberated

lungs

to know which season it is

of the total years of my life,

weren’t we only just nineteen,

tonya & i, wasn’t she only just

alive, long-limbed & cross-legged

on my dorm room floor,

wasn’t it springtime of a year

so unlike this one, thirteen

years past, cool nights in line

outside the nuyorican hoping

to make it on the list, wasn’t it

a friday night like this one

& the only people i wanted to love

were poets, earrings swaying

against their necks, dancing

in the dark of the room where we

all knew each other’s secrets, weren’t

we all just at that party, wasn’t i only

just eighteen, pointed northward

on a chinatown bus to that city,

to watch ai elo onstage at the apollo,

wasn’t she only just alive, smoking

with camonghne, asking me my favorite

song, cackling on the apartment floor,

on the air mattress we used as a couch,

how is it that it was long ago, how is it

i am on the other side of it, long ago, how

did i leave that city, that time when we

were all together, everyone alive,

wasn’t the dream to be a poet, wasn’t

the plan to live forever, our powers

newly acquired, newly in love

with what we could do, didn’t we all

belong to each other, to that work,

going after to the pizza shop

to recite what we’d memorized,

weren’t we all just there, wasn’t it warm

outside, wasn’t the road long & clear,

isn’t it early still, isn’t it late, & why

am i still here, did i survive or was i left

behind, & what season is it that we are

no longer together & some of us have gone?

are not mythological

we are starving

or eating salty cakes

made of clay

because in 1804 we felled

our former slave captors

the graceless losers sunk

vindictive yellow

teeth into our forests

what was green is now

dust and everyone knows

trees unleash oxygen

(another humble word

for life)

they took off

with our torn branches

beheaded our future

stuck our breath up on pikes

for all the world to see

we are a living dead example

of what happens to warriors who

in lieu of fighting for white men's countries

dare to fight

for their own lives

during carnival

we could care less

about our bloated empty bellies

where there are voices

we are dancing

where there is vodou

we are horses

where there are drums

we are possessed

with joy and stubborn jamboree

but when the makeshift

trumpet player

runs out of rhythmic breath

the only sound left is

guts grumbling

and we sigh

to remember

that food

and freedom

are not free

is haiti really free

if our babies die starving?

if we cannot write our names

read our rights keep

our leaders in their seats?

can we be free? really?

if our mothers are mud? if dead

columbus keeps cursing us

and nothing changes

when we curse back

we are a proud resilient people

though we return to dust daily

salt gray clay with hot black tears

savor snot cakes

over suicide

we are hungry

creative people

sip bits of laughter

when we are thirsty

dance despite

this asthma

called debt

congesting

legendarily liberated

lungs

toy box the better we did the better the plastic prize made in China one year everyone got a spinning top one year everyone got a tap on their shoulders

one year everyone was fired everyone

fired but me one year we all lost our words one year my father lost his words to a stroke a stroke of bad luck stuck his words

 used to be so worldly his words fired

him let him go without notice can they do that can she do that yes she can in this land she can once we sang songs around a piano this land is your land this land is my land in this land someone always

owns the land in this land someone who owns the land owns the buildings on the land owns the people in the buildings unless an earthquake sucks the land in like a long noodle

Jericho Brown

The water is one thing, and one thing for miles.
The water is one thing, making this bridge
Built over the water another. Walk it
Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone
Rising just to find a way toward rest again.
We work, start on one side of the day
Like a planet’s only sun, our eyes straight
Until the flame sinks. The flame sinks. Thank God
I’m different. I’ve figured and counted. I’m not crossing
To cross back. I’m set
On something vast. It reaches
Long as the sea. I’m more than a conqueror, bigger
Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps.

asking a kindergartner, but on second take, what word best

describes me, crossbreed of butterfly and Super Fly aesthetics,

other than peculiar? I suppose calling me a keen kid would

also suffice in explaining my avidity for the kind of death that

progresses the narrative of a gentling history, because that’s

the only frame for greatness I seem to find for boys my shade

and age to aspire to, short of having the height and hops to

touch the rim, or the bulk and burst to break through the

defensive line like a bullet.

And, no, I haven’t given up

on the prospect of Bulls starting shooting guard yet, but

the God-fearer impressed upon me begs the mythology of

goodness delivered to the multitudes like loaves and fish;

how King is talked about in a black Christian tradition still

in mourning over his lost rays of light, the way mentioning

the name of Malcolm makes mice of shady white men some

thirty years after the shotgun and he’s sung of as a prince:

I want to evoke that level of pride in American democracy’s

dark downtrodden because I know what it invokes in me,

young and impressionable, watching Denzel’s mimicry

for the one millionth time in my abbreviated existence — 

drawing an X on my undeveloped chest, pushing it out

into the unknown-ahead hoping a Mecca for melanin rises

from the man-shaped hole I’d left in my loved ones’ lives.

I bet my parents would be so proud of me.

I bet post offices would close on my birthday.

I bet God would dap me up

when I got up there and Jesus — 

dying on a cross to meet me.

By Safia Elhillo

After Louise Glück

it’s late now, it’s early, no way

to know which season it is

of the total years of my life,

weren’t we only just nineteen,

tonya & i, wasn’t she only just

alive, long-limbed & cross-legged

on my dorm room floor,

wasn’t it springtime of a year

so unlike this one, thirteen

years past, cool nights in line

outside the nuyorican hoping

to make it on the list, wasn’t it

a friday night like this one

& the only people i wanted to love

were poets, earrings swaying

against their necks, dancing

in the dark of the room where we

all knew each other’s secrets, weren’t

we all just at that party, wasn’t i only

just eighteen, pointed northward

on a chinatown bus to that city,

to watch ai elo onstage at the apollo,

wasn’t she only just alive, smoking

with camonghne, asking me my favorite

song, cackling on the apartment floor,

on the air mattress we used as a couch,

how is it that it was long ago, how is it

i am on the other side of it, long ago, how

did i leave that city, that time when we

were all together, everyone alive,

wasn’t the dream to be a poet, wasn’t

the plan to live forever, our powers

newly acquired, newly in love

with what we could do, didn’t we all

belong to each other, to that work,

going after to the pizza shop

to recite what we’d memorized,

weren’t we all just there, wasn’t it warm

outside, wasn’t the road long & clear,

isn’t it early still, isn’t it late, & why

am i still here, did i survive or was i left

behind, & what season is it that we are

no longer together & some of us have gone?