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“The Border: A Double Sonnet” ~ Alberto Ríos

“The Border: A Double Sonnet” ~ Alberto Ríos

The border is a line that birds cannot see. The border is a beautiful piece of paper folded carelessly in half. The border is where flint first met steel, starting a century of fires. The border is a belt that is too tight, holding things up but making it hard to breathe. The border is a rusted hinge that does not bend. The border is the blood clot in the river’s vein. The border says stop to the…

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“Global Warming” ~ Jane Hirshfield

“Global Warming” ~ Jane Hirshfield

When his ship first came to Australia, Cook wrote, the natives continued fishing, without looking up. Unable, it seems, to fear what was too large to be comprehended.

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“A Queerification” ~ Regie Cabico

“A Queerification” ~ Regie Cabico

  —for Creativity and Crisis at the National Mall queer me shift me transgress me tell my students i’m gay tell chick fil a i’m queer tell the new york times i’m straight tell the mail man i’m a lesbian tell american airlines i don’t know what my gender is like me liking you like summer blockbuster armrest dates armrest cinematic love elbow to forearm in the dark humor me queerly fill me with…

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“To Be A Woman” ~ Alice Walker

“To Be A Woman” ~ Alice Walker

To be a woman Does not mean To Wear A shroud; The feminine Is not Dead Nor is she Sleeping Angry, yes, Seething, yes. Biding her time; Yes. Yes.

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“Everybody Has a Heartache: A Blues” ~ Joy Harjo

“Everybody Has a Heartache: A Blues” ~ Joy Harjo

In the United terminal in Chicago at five on a Friday afternoon The sky is breaking with rain and wind and all the flights Are delayed forever. We will never get to where we are going And there’s no way back to where we’ve been. The sun and the moon have disappeared to an island far from 
anywhere. Everybody has a heartache — The immense gatekeeper of Gate Z–100 keeps his cool. This guardian of…

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“What Changes” ~ Naomi Shihab Nye

“What Changes” ~ Naomi Shihab Nye

My father’s hopes travel with me years after he died. Someday we will learn how to live.  All of us surviving without violence never stop dreaming how to cure it. What changes? Crossing a small street in Doha Souk, nut shops shuttered, a handkerchief lies crumpled in the street, maroon and white, like one my father had, from Jordan.  Perfectly placed in his pocket under his smile, for years. He…

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“What it Look Like” ~ Terrance Hayes

“What it Look Like” ~ Terrance Hayes

Dear Ol’ Dirty Bastard: I too like it raw, I don’t especially care for Duke Ellington at a birthday party. I care less and less about the shapes of shapes because forms change and nothing is more durable than feeling. My uncle used the money I gave him to buy a few vials of what looked like candy after the party where my grandma sang in an outfit that was obviously made for a West African king.…

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“Hands” ~ Safiya Sinclair

“Hands” ~ Safiya Sinclair

Out here the surf rewrites our silences. This smell of ocean may never leave me; our humble life or the sea a dark page I am trying to turn: Today my mother’s words sound final. And perhaps this is her first true thing. Her hands have not been her hands since she was twelve, motherless and shucking whatever the sea could offer, each day orphaned in the tide of her own necessity—where the…

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“American Pharoah” ~ Ada Limón

“American Pharoah” ~ Ada Limón

Despite the morning’s gray static of rain, we drive to Churchill Downs at 6 a.m., eyes still swollen shut with sleep. I say, Remember when I used to think everything was getting better and better? Now, I think it’s just getting worse and worse. I know it’s not what I’m supposed to say as we machine our way through the silent seventy minutes on 64 over pavement still fractured from the winter’s…

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“Abeyance” ~ Rebecca Foust

“Abeyance” ~ Rebecca Foust

letter to my transgender daughter I made soup tonight, with cabbage, chard and thyme picked outside our back door. For this moment the room is warm and light, and I can presume you safe somewhere. I know the night lives inside you. I know grave, sad errors were made, dividing you, and hiding you from you inside. I know a girl like you was knifed last week, another set aflame. I know I lack the…

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“Some years there exists a wanting to escape...” ~ Claudia Rankine

“Some years there exists a wanting to escape…” ~ Claudia Rankine

Some years there exists a wanting to escape— you, floating above your certain ache— still the ache coexists. Call that the immanent you— You are you even before you grow into understanding you are not anyone, worthless, not worth you. Even as your own weight insists you are here, fighting off the weight of nonexistence. And still this life parts your lids, you see you seeing your extending hand…

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Rationale ~ Fuel To The Fire

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“Sci-Fi” ~ Tracy K. Smith

“Sci-Fi” ~ Tracy K. Smith

There will be no edges, but curves. Clean lines pointing only forward. History, with its hard spine & dog-eared Corners, will be replaced with nuance, Just like the dinosaurs gave way To mounds and mounds of ice. Women will still be women, but The distinction will be empty. Sex, Having outlived every threat, will gratify Only the mind, which is where it will exist. For kicks, we’ll dance for…

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Lizzo ~ Good As Hell

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Brodka ~ Up In The Hill (Official Video)

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“Say Something” ~ Stellenbosch University Choir

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“It Comes in Every Storm” ~ Olga Orozco

“It Comes in Every Storm” ~ Olga Orozco

translated by Mary Crow And don’t you feel also, perhaps, a stormy sorrow on the skin of time, like a scar that opens again there where the sky was uprooted? And don’t you feel sometimes how that night gathers its tatters into an ominous bird, that there’s a beating of wings against the roof like a clash among immense spring leaves struggling or of hands clapping to summon you to death? And don’t…

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