OPEN AND OPEN Originally published at Wordgathering Dear brother, I want the truth in the amber bottle, empty, beside you. The vomit that sealed your lips. The abundance of you and your addiction, and the decay. I want you open to a wholeness between us. Not this fissure. Not this blank country shorn of what…
THE END OF THE ORDINARY BODY Originally published in Rogue Agent In the prison, bodies come to understand the walls. Their hands move little, clutched in front of faces until there is the wall and the barred window of the cell. From behind there, you can sense other hands slithering past like amoebas, unseen and…
POST-CRANIOTOMY Originally published in The Shallow Ends You appear dehorned with two holes on your head— an unsuspected devil newly redeemed. Your eyes stay closed. Seated on the bed, I watch your broad face shrink into a new country. Your forehead perspires. Read the rest of the poem published in The Shallow Ends.
Self-Portrait with Mysticism Originally published in Right Hand Pointing The office expresses the evening’s encroachment. The lamp shines two faces on a wall, desperate to butter the room with its light. Ants inch in from the crooks, led by somatic consensus, laced with intimations of light, penciled onto the wooden floor. I always thought I…
Dream of Exile Originally published in Right Hand Pointing We—a band of fugitives and I—attempt to bury ourselves to escape someone’s wrath. For some reason, everyone decides to bury me first, and I assist only halfheartedly. I’d like to spruce up before resigning myself to six feet under. The more lipstick and nail polish, the…
Lessons in Isolation Originally published in Redivider In the prison, bodies come to understand the walls. Their hands move little, clutched in front of faces until there is the wall and the barred window of the cell. From behind there, you can sense other hands slithering past like amoebas, unseen and immune to expression, but…
THE WAYS WE SPEAK Originally published in The Rumpus In the 1998 Flower Valley Elementary production of Peter Pan, I was cast as J.M. Barrie’s mute American Indian Tiger Lily, daughter of the Chieftain Great Big Little Panther, who is captured by the Pirates, then left to drown on Marooner’s Rock before Peter Pan comes to…
A neighborhood in need of a bus Originally published in The Washington Post The Montgomery County Council recently made $4 million in cuts to transportation services, including the elimination of proposed Ride On bus service to Tobytown that was scheduled to begin Oct. 1. Tobytown is a historically black and low-income mixed-housing development in affluent Potomac, just a couple of…
E. Ethelbert Miller: A Mentor for Social Change Read the original in The Writer Center’s Summer Issue. Poet, memoirist, and essayist E. Ethelbert Miller relaxes into a brightly colored classroom chair wearing his signature purple-framed glasses and fedora. Having just come from his talk at American University about Ta-Nehisi Coates’s multiple award-winning memoir, Between the…
Getting Personal and Political with Rachel Eliza Griffiths Read the full article originally posted in The Writer’s Guide. What they call you is one thing. What you answer to is something else.” Lucille Clifton’s words are a mantra of sorts for Rachel Eliza Griffiths in her efforts-through making art and writing poetry-to shatter ideology that…