PUFFED UP From wax, Leonardo formed a doughy mass, and when it softened, he shaped it into delicate animals filled with air. He blew into...

Imprinted It’s something about time the torturous divine this image of tiny lizards scurrying ancient stone walls with which I remained...

Fuck, he's left the milk out, I can see it behind his head. And this meeting is due to last an hour, and I want to tell him, I cannot...

It’s April and there’s sticky apple blood on my chin, a rock in my pocket, and I’m simultaneously 48 and 12 years old: ready to explore...

I know what the caged bird feels, alas! - Paul Laurence Dunbar, “Sympathy” An Interpretation of Why Caged Birds Sing - After Paul...

Dreadlock Man Dreadlock man fi die alone As the slender figures with eyeless faces Pass without rhythm in their strides rightleftright...

There is something to be said about a black man who might make himself a bioethicist & clone his shame to be something preserved in...

Dollar store Conor Oberst with a Bandcamp account The Satanic Bible on your mantle and the Tao Te Ching on your nightstand – you dread,...

Spiritual Awakening cousin rolled up in grandpa’s backyard waiting for the one to come home grandpa said “you can’t control a man, but...

Stone Dove the first time I read about the bird and the cage it sung herself out of I waited to hear something award winning – the...

Delinquent. I like the way the word starts because it reminds me of delicious (ness). And then, suddenly, without warning it lapses into...

Bucket list(s) i. Things to do/achieve list 2019 Go horse-riding Learn how to play the guitar Learn a new language Buy a (very) nice...

In Blood, Sweat and a Glimpse of Hope “we will walk through darkness till daybreak” — The President who never Was Angels, gather. Sing...

The Place I Call Home An Ode to jersey City, New Jersey ,my home for more than 15 years I'm from the most diverse city in the nation, a...

Taproots thrust and dive, trusting in their feeders' thirst no, tata never touched me like that (tiny girl, you still left me with him)...

Boys like me make art of our misery, our fingers fiddling on the canvas of worries. We box into silence, our body swallowing every pinch...

dream on dreamer the way Alvin Ailey and Maya Angelou and George Floyd and Breonna Taylor dreamed of southern-baked pilgrims dancing and...

You can taste the starved love Rubbing the sleepy genocide eyes Of tiny children With history pinned inside Their orphaned clothes They...

One night while we slept Dreaming of forests And inhabited attics And circuses Impossible spaces Tilting platforms Sad, beautiful...

As I heft the suitcase onto the station’s tarmac The rivers of her tears are pooling in the corners of my eyes Grant Shimmin is a South...