by Javier Zamora [byline] la herradura, s.v.—¿Do I have a mother? Have her pinkie in my hand crossing the street? Have her breath on my hair as she sings arru-rru mi niño to sleep. ¿Don’t you mean where? ¿What was your question? I’m older. Think more about memory. It makes me crazy. Obsessed. Her warm […]
by Carrie Fountain says the heart. Excuse me says the body. Feed me says the child. Today the world will open as it does every day, and that scrim behind which I so often hide—I will push at it. Someday it will give way. And what will I find looking back at me? Who will […]
by Camille Dungy When I reached St. Peter, he was too small to crawl. I introduced myself as someone’s mother, and he consulted his big Book of Roles. Stand there, said Peter, pointing to the line with all the other hopeless mothers. But, I said, I’ve been there all along. The woman in front of […]
By Julian Talamantez Brolaski Lrsn, brute battlements of infamy cd not nor the former planet pluto, nor those pulchritudinous characters who scape even usen’s reach, the plumes, nor yet those fruits who are bred to be of uniform size, watermelons squard compliant papayas, I followed the norteñəs train to train, the field populates or the […]
by Richard Blanco First half of his life lived in Spanish: the long syntax of las montañas that lined his village, the rhyme of sol with his soul—a Cuban alma—that swayed with las palmas, the sharp rhythm of his machete cutting through caña, the syllables of his canarios that sung into la brisa of the […]
By Joy Harjo Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star’s stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you […]
by Robin Robertson And there it was: the swell and glitter of it like a standing wave – the fabled, smoking ruin, the new towers rising through the blue, the ranked array of ivory and gold, the glint, the glamour of buried light as the world turned round it very slowly this autumn morning, all […]
by Tracy K. Smith Why and by whose power were you sent? What do you see that you may wish to steal? Why all this dancing? Why do your dark bodies Drink up the light? What are you demanding That we feel? Have you stolen something? Then What is that leaping in your chest? What […]
by Daniel Borzutzky The bodies are on the beach And the bodies keep breaking And the fight is over But the bodies aren’t dead And the mayor keeps saying I will bring back the bodies I will bring back the bodies that were broken The broken bodies speak slowly They walk slowly […]
by Javier Zamora For Chino In the middle of that desert that didn’t look like sand and sand only, in the middle of those acacias, whiptails, and coyotes, someone yelled “¡La Migra!” and everyone ran. In that dried creek where 40 of us slept, we turned to each other and you flew from my side […]
