Hiding Place – Busisiwe Mahlangu
There is always someone suggesting a way to fix yourself
There is a way to make tummy-rolls roll off you
There is a way to burn the bulge under your arm
There is a way to cut your hips
Poem At Twenty-Four – Abdulrahim Hussani
But I can tell you of the dreams
the real ones that found sloughs to dwell in
away from the cold of their own terrain
watching indifferently, the shivering bodies
LAMENTATIONS OF A WANDERER – Victor Enite Abu
Could I have known that in the dark corners of a building
In the chaos of music and swinging hips
In the cloud of smoke and streams of liquor
Banach-Tarski/Suddenly – Akpa Arinzechukwu
We are mere observers, witnessing tradition: a long line
of trauma. Ah Lord please take our silence, send us back the soured prayer.
Let the soup be both the house & the arguments.
Sickle Cell Is the New Tribe – Jeremy Karn
there are sicknesses as old as time, there is a tribe as new as the pain your body invented,
and there are rivers that were once here but have now dragged themselves into your eyes
Ellipsis – Nwaoha Chibuzor Anthony
This is cartography.
This is how we are; we live our lives growing in the branches of things
and spend our lives trying to carve words to fill the ellipsis
Half-mast In Idlib – Agunbiade Kehinde
the night gets halved as the broadcast from the radio declares another series of loss. grief is no place to seek asylum when borders close & the shadows of your lost ones haunt the nights
Kwa Esther #8 – Clifton Gachagua
here, there’s no time for memory or regret or any feelings
of shame, or nostalgia, or experimenting. no looking back.
to start something with someone I want to impress
I mention I’m reading Delany’s Hogg.
Iriabo – Fubaraibi Benstowe
Barefooted woman
Dancer submerged in music
Swing, swing on
The waist is praised for ripples made in the arena
a long dance – Clifton Gachagua
what I am is metadata, dream text. mathematics without the science. fuck roots. these names continue to mean nothing. I’m a blue, underlined link to a page of useless language
Kunju Seghi – Fubaraibi Benstowe
Tell me, what semblance in nature can outshine your steps?
The dance of mangroves when the wind plays their drums?
Or the bubble dance of boiling soup
Touching Tips – Jarred Thompson
i. When the tip of me touches the tip of youit is only the tip of the icebergplunging deep and forgetting the fear of the leap offthe highest point in the heart. ii. In high school we had a science project to make a Jacob’s Ladder.We bunked school, Muhamad and I, alone at his house,working […]