Falling Patrick Phillips The truth is that I fall in love so easily because it's easy. It happens a dozen times some days. I've lived whole lives, had children, grown old, and died in the arms of other women in no more time than it takes the 2-train to get from City Hall to Brooklyn, which brings me back to you: the only one I fall in love with at least once every day— not because there are no other   lovely women in the world, but because each time, dying in their arms, I call your name.

Lightning Witter Bynner  There is a solitude in seeing you,  Followed by your company when you are gone. You are like heaven’s veils of lightning.  I cannot see till afterward How beautiful you are. There is a blindness in seeing you,  Followed by the sight of you when you are gone. This poem is in the public domain, and originally appeared in Others for 1919; An Anthology of the New Verse (Nicholas L. Brown, 1920).

Eagle Poem Joy Harjo  To pray you open your whole self To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon To one whole voice that is you. And know there is more That you can't see, can't hear, Can't know except in moments Steadily growing, and in languages That aren't always sound but other Circles of motion. Like eagle that Sunday morning Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky In wind, swept our hearts clean With sacred wings. We see you, see ourselves and know That we must take the utmost care And kindness in all things. Breathe in, knowing we are [...]

Contemplating Extinction as Theme in Basquiat’s “Pez Dispenser, 1984” Kristina Kay Robinson for Malcolm Latiff Shabazz yellow roses in my mother’s room    mean I’m sorry   sadness comes in      generations inheritance           split   flayed    displayed better than all the others crown                                    weight the undue burden of the truly exceptional most special of your kind, a kind of fire persisting unafraid      saffron bloom to remind us of fragility    or beauty       or revolution to ponder darkly             in the bright the fate of young kings [...]

Peacock Feather Effie Lee Newsome Heav’n’s deepest blue, Earth’s richest green, Minted dust of stars, Molten sunset sheen, Are blent together On this lithe brown feather, In a disc of light— Lithe, light!