Poetry
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“Black the fig
in her brown hand,
the one reaching now
across my face: My grandmother
in all her mutiny
that dark morning she baited the dog,
stray thing she will tend to,
kiss & whistle for
as it rests in the shade of the fig tree,”
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1st place Meek Poetry Prize.
“Black my grandmother’s silver hair. Mother cradling its long memory between her left fingers
as she holds a pair of bold scissors in the other.
Black the rocks in her ivory mouth when grandmother says, Ya se acabo todo
& Mother snips years of twilight & disappointment to her shoulders.
Black the desert birds as they peck on the figs of the tree, black seeds falling
stars freckles across this arid earth. And dark I am
recalling you, Mother, when you were rushed for words & replied,
The birds are talking so strangely, Mamá.
I think they might be happy. “
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“I am sick
with obsession
digging deeper
into the black of my pockets
where I thought I would carry the paper roads
& rivers back to us.
But the maps I was given, dear siblings,
don’t mark the rhythm of our dark bodies
against the rhythm of this sable land—no,
these double-dealing things abide by a different sight.”
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Pushcart nominee.
“Do I really think if we began as ash,
the fish will forgive us, take us back?
Morning, I walk along silent theaters
of war & wealth. But silence
is not an absence of articulation,
not an absence of utterance:
Know where you are, child.
The sound of lung
& gill preceding the image.”
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“There,
just beyond the edge of the sofa
is a deluge & child,
the many freckled hands of a willow
peopling its unruly reflection,
the stars & fireflies confusing each other.”
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2nd Place Poetry Prize judged by Safiya Sinclair.
“This is a beautifully constructed poem—a thoughtful elegy for those slaughtered by police brutality, as well as an imagined future for the fatherless victims of racial violence. Both tribute and warning, the poem centers on the daughter of Philando Castile as hope, as avenger. The poem soars, using masterful imagery and powerful examination to scorch against the fixed stars of these vile historical and reoccurring wounds.” — Safiya Sinclair, Poetry Judge
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“I remember cotton
wood fences, blunted posts
sinking into moondust ,
rains weeping the ribbon of this river
full posts tracing the backbone
of this border, the wood
farther and deeper
into this memory &
the land drying up.”
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Best of the Net Nominee.
“here I am admiring fire
flies, recalling polished sailboats from childhood
against the image of makeshift rafts
printed in distant ink
sinking in the sea
as the burning copal candles from abuela’s room
float across the crow
black horizon, her prayers
then & now,
their bodies
go & go
& I am here, still here
here
applying lotion &
wishing on a fallen eyelash,
counting the days till I know I am home.”
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“Ask me who I am,
and I’ll tell you
through rajadas. Ask me
how my eyes sit deep in their brown
and how my mouth moves comfortably
to a colonized tongue,
and I’ll tell you
through mispronunciation. Ask me
what I see in the black reflection of my mother’s obsidian mirror,
and I’ll tell you
through straight white American teeth:
‘The thesis and the anti.’”
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Nominee for PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.