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Track: “More Than a Woman,” Aaliyah

by Arianne Elena Payne

like the meat of a mango,
i offer a proposition. i’ll give you

the sweetest parts: waist of my neck,
bridge of my laughter, coat

of my inner thigh, shield of my intimacy.
like the meat of a mango, i stick

in teeth easy; i’m still worth every bite.
even if you choke, consider it an honor.
.
yesterday i saved my own life.
a Black woman in love

with herself: an answer to loneliness.
let’s say i befriend the red line, race her

to the loop, and lose. even so, she’d carry
me home rocking a restful cadence.

when i arrive at my doorstep,
a trophy will appear at my feet.
.
meet me on the edge of my cascade.
plant your weight on the water and walk.

i am the river. don’t like it? you must
be pebble. my flow makes stones quiver.

who the fuck do i think i am?
abundance. a skyscraper

told me, you’re 20 feet tall.
the clouds bobbed in agreement.

Arianne Elena Payne is a multidisciplinary poet and strategist from Chicago, IL. She received the 2022 Virginia Downs Poetry Award and the 2019 Frederick Hartmann Poetry Prize. She is a MFA candidate at George Mason University where she serves as a reader for Poetry Daily. Her work is situated in the complexities and lyricism of Blackness and girlhood—striving to take Black people and their contributions across time and space seriously.

Tiny Bones

by Christie Valentin-Bati

Christie Valentin-Bati is (unofficially) a suburban kid from Florida now mostly grown up. Officially, she is a multi-genre writer and photographer interested in the everyday/mundane. Her work has received honorable mention in the 2022 and 2021 Academy of American Poet’s Poetry Contest, has been commissioned by the ACLU of Illinois, and exhibited in Porous Gallery. She is a Poet-in-Residence with The Chicago Poetry Center and Teaching Artist at Young Chicago Authors. More of her work is at https://bit.ly/christievb or IG: @christie.vbati

O(r)bit

by Daisy Clar Rosenstock

The next evening, I wake,
still in mourning under that
afternoon’s thumb. “We are
strange creatures,” you said,
“like Robert Grenier’s CICADA.”
A whine in the late summer,
blue and bright. A hollow skin
crushed underfoot, here yet
very much there. Spring springs
underneath the down comforter—
the hyacinths trying to grow
out of a right temple. Everyone,
your attention please:
thank you so much for coming but
my funeral was actually yesterday.

Daisy Clar Rosenstock is an MFA candidate at Boise State University. When not writing sad poems, Daisy can be found daydreaming about abandoned houses or chatting with the local dying pine tree.

The Race Recipe

by David A. Gaines

David A. Gaines (he/they), also known as Dave G, is a Black writer, filmmaker and performer born and raised in the greater Philadelphia area. He is an award-winning and nationally touring poet, a fellow of The Watering Hole and holds multiple slam poetry championship titles, including 2017 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational Champion and 4th rank in the 2018 Individual World Poetry Slam. His work has been featured in the National Black Arts Festival, International Human Rights Art Festival, Button Poetry, Write About Now, VICE Media, among many others. When not performing, you can find Dave teaching poetry to Philly youth, collecting yo-yos and searching for the greatest spicy pickle recipe.

Safety

by Eye Sinkhole Tabitha III

You read a book about space
and call your walls a memoir

You write a book about space
and I call you safety

I write a love
poem and readers assume sex

I write a love poem
about unpacking a room

about building an unpacked room
you and a house of lived-in rooms

I unpack my room and every book
is about you and space

Eye Sinkhole Tabitha III was named after an egg. She has touched every item at Trader Joe’s and wants to braid her hair with yours. She reads submissions for Taco Bell Quarterly. You can contact her at eyesinkholetabitha3@gmail.com.

The Walk of Shame Aubade

by Aidan Aragon

the moon, a loose sequin, dangles
from the sky’s slack-jawed maw

drooping lower and lower
with each of my heavy-lidded blinks,

feet dragging against the concrete
against the inside of my ear slick

and cold from the slip of his tongue,
like my satin slip creased around

my chest, cheap and smoke smooth,
draping over me like the memory

of his palm indented in the curve
of my step, how my thigh rubs

its sister, chafes against the memory
of his palm pressed, firm,

into that spot, red-pink-purpling,
inches away from where he slipped

us together, the feel of my legs opening
like a sunrise on a cloudless day, eyes

rubbed awake enough to slur together
the door’s opening groan, a cock’s

morning yelp, the yawn of his orgasm
a paisley blue handkerchief

to wipe spittle from the night’s mouth,
my eyes over this groggy city

folding into themselves like
a sock hung over the doorknob.

This poem previously appeared in Illumination.

Aidan Aragon is a queer poet and college student based in Madison, Wi. Their work has been featured in Peach Mag, Perhappened, and Cosmonauts Avenue among others. You can find them online @aidanaragon. 

Tymbal

by Shakeema Smalls

It helps that we do not remember
when light first opened our eyes
this old testament sun
warming the dark
its nutritious sweet lingering
before even our bones.
We trade places as a single body
the daysong receiving us
no pantomime orchestra
we who have risen
to sing, to love, to die
to timbal and vibrato
until we can only sound
ourselves in the hush
until our memories are at rest
like the old trees that sated us
all those years
our mouths latched
at their roots.

Shakeema Smalls is from Georgetown, South Carolina. Her work has been published in a variety of outlets including Blackberry: A Magazine, Tidal Basin Review, Root Work Journal, Radius Lit, Free Black Space, Vinyl Poetry and Prose, Rigorous, and A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine, among others. She was a Tin House 2022 Winter Workshop participant and is a 2022 PEN Emerging Voices Fellow.