Winter 2023

Shikata ga nai

In 1934, the snow-covered Sierras peeking over a brown rampart of foothills looked close enough to touch. Our strawberry fields shimmered in the summer heat. Grape trellises shaded tongue-in-groove walls, but the little yellow house… Read More »Shikata ga nai

The Treachery

(after Renée Cox’s “Yo Mama’s Last Supper”) Renée Cox’s “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” is a full-color five panel photographic installation that features twelve men at a banquet table with the artist herself standing, nude, in… Read More »The Treachery

I Am Hungry

March 24, 2020 “I want something to eat. I want something Mommy.” It’s only one week after the NYC public schools shuttered because of the Coronavirus. We are still in complete emergency mode with no… Read More »I Am Hungry

Five Poems

motherhood What is love if not uprooting yourself to follow impossibilitiescrossing seas and skies to hollow futures吃苦 (eat bitterness) and sun-grazed heartache.You forget your childhood but your mother-tongue clings and clenches. My grandmother used to say that… Read More »Five Poems

Legacy

Slavery. Jim Crow. School-to-Prison Pipeline. Now that our mule has plowed those forty acres, let me build a little house on one corner of it. Deep addiction, like jail, distorts time. On one hand, I… Read More »Legacy

Going Mental

My therapist says it is a disability, I checked disabled. My therapist says it is a disorder, I made a list. There are seven.My therapist says I will be pushing a shopping cart down the road one day talking to… Read More »Going Mental

Balancing Act

But what do you do when a walkaround the neighborhood meansyou might commit mass murder in mere minutes?I look down, notice a beetle hunting for a meal.A worm wriggles in desperation for the moisture of… Read More »Balancing Act

It Is Time To

Wake upWake up now It is timeto remember the visionI gave you long ago:feel merunning fast and freenose to the groundsinging loud and clearover old brittle bonesof past lives and past lovers;a howlingwild scented freedomand… Read More »It Is Time To