Red Tulips, Then Asphodel by Brenda Shaughnessy
“Did I once / feel like a tulip // bending gracefully toward its own root, its own death” — Brenda Shaughnessy
Alternate Names for Black Boys by Danez Smith
“5. guilty until proven dead / 6. oil heavy starlight / 7. monster until proven ghost / 8. gone” — Danez Smith
“A Mouthful of Salt… / I Came Through Numb Waters” by Charif Shanahan
“How do I move the line when it is buried // in the earth. Why do you think my face / is the face you think you see.” — Charif Shanahan
what the ocean said to the black boy by Clint Smith
“they call me blue because / they don't understand how the sky work / they call you black because / they don't understand how god work” — Clint Smith
To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian by Ross Gay
“we are feeding each other / from a tree” — Ross Gay
Dorothy Wordsworth by Jennifer Chang
“I, too, have a big messy head / on a fragile stalk.” — Jennifer Chang
Naming the Trees by Eric Gamalinda
“home is that place / you are continually born into, / that you leave with no regret, / that grows smaller each time you return.” — Eric Gamalinda
Pinguinus Impennis by Kimiko Hahn
“What dreams are worth such extinction? / And are they dreams I'd wish to own?” — Kimiko Hahn
Mountain, Stone by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
“Do not name your children. Let them live / nameless, seal their eyelids / and sell their voices to the nightingale.” — Lena Khalaf Tuffaha