And I’ve mastered the art of receiving handouts because I come from this place – Ama Asantewa Diaka
I am hungry for a love my country cannot afford,
the way white lusts for a backdrop to outshine
old things – Michelle Angwenyi
endlessly exposed, now and again, and especially then when we
stood, at ocean’s edge, morphing in and out as the waves
Tender Crow’s Feet – J.K. Anowe
what is it they say about dancing into your own story without soles
or nakedness as fireproof lord knows he let us come this far just so we
could feel us come apart
Reincarnation – Afua Ansong
This is absurd for on my wall, right down that American hall, stands a painting; a mythical conga bird
perched on a tree branch
A dream in English – Lillian Akampurira Aujo
yet somehow, our shame we left unclothed.
earth sopping in bone-lava us burning us failing to decide
whether it was dirty whether it was a sacred purge
Revision – Victoria Adukwei Bulley
fa-la-la-la-la can you believe that? and i was so happy to see grandma so alive, singing all these words – of which i understand nothing
& I Mourned What I Could Not Name – Yasmin Belkhyr
The mountains vanish and took her too.
When I return, the land spits at my feet.
There is no shame in this, I’m told
A Long Sky – Thato Chuma
My mother said I must hold the sun in my mouth
For days too dark to live through
For days that sound like mourning
Thirteenth – Nica Cornell
Your fingers are large.
My strings are thin.
And when I am wet,
like paper, I tear
Acacia – Malak El-Quessny
حيّ الله As the humming flies
That hover like worker bees
Dressed for a funeral An ecosystem
Ten lessons in bleeding – Sarah Godsell
I have layers of skin that hug me before I bleed. They cling to me even as I betray myself.
blood is better than noose. Scars better than red bath. I have never held a gun anyway
Let Me Go – Karen Jennings
The streets in which I lived and
the gardens where they’re scattered, all my family but me
