Pride Poems spotlights LGBTQ+ poets from the greater Washington, D.C. region, by releasing a new video each day during the month of June, in honor of National Pride Month.

The theme for 2025 is Word Play: poems that re-define words, use specialized vocabularies or incorporate words and languages other than English, use puns, or in some other way focus on the roots and etymology of language. Videos are short — some as short as half a minute in length-and feature the author who wrote each poem reading their work.

  1. “His dick looked like an Olive Garden breadstick” by Adrian Gaston Garcia

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    His dick looked like an Olive Garden breadstick
    

    So I let him 
    
	toss 
    
	my 
    
	salad
    

    We helped 
    
	ourselves
    
	to seconds 
    
thirds
    

    I would 
    
	have eaten 
    
	all of him 
    
	if only 
    
	he let me
    

    I never 
    
	knew hunger 
    
	could taste 
    
	like that
    

    We were 
    
	unlimited
    
	in appetite, 
    
	with mouths 
    
	full 
    

    We yelled 
    
	demands 
    
	for more
    

    He was
    
	body 
    
	licking
    
	good
    

    That night,
    
	gluttony 
    
	flavored 
    
more 
    
sweet 
    
than 
    
sin 
    

    But didn’t 
    
	last longer 
    
	than that 
    
	late craving 
    
	for a snack 
    

    That was                     
    
	only meant 
    
	to be 
    
	a guilty 
    
	pleasure.
    

    Adrian Gaston Garcia (aka AGG) is a queer Latine storyteller whose mission is to share narratives that build community. His work is largely based on his experiences and the intersectionality of his identities. It is a shout out to all the queer brown boys who choose joy as their form of resistance. He is the co-host and producer of Los Bookis Podcast, a podcast for queer Latine bookworms who love queer Latine stories and also the organizer of Tintas DC – a Latine writers group in the DC Metro Area. Adrian is a 2025 Pride Poet in Residence at the Arts Club of Washington.
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    Adrian Gaston Garcia is a resident of Columbia Heights.

    N/A

  2. “Cuffing Season” by Natalie E. Illum

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    Cuffing Season
    

    I felt your two hands
    

    bury me to release its splendor. -Louise Gluick
    

    This is the time of year when I spoon
    

    with my demons and they stroke my cheek 
    

    like a first love. When I crush so hard	“
    

    on my failures and they flirt back like 
    

    they mean it.  When the light shifts,
    

    my friends also 
    

    turn inwards; return to their own DNA 
    

    for warmth, whisper things to partners in private 
    

    and my lonely is so loud, they mistake it
    

    for a dance party.  It is not the season
    

    for dancing.  It is the season
    

    for stretching one memory so thin 
    

    it dissolves into its opposite.  
    

    The I love yous bruise over. 
    

    The see you tonights becomes 
    

    next week becomes never. 
    

    I want us to be humid again, 
    

    tangled in our hair and hope. 
    

    The way you smile.
    

    You tilt your head toward 
    

    the sun like any vine would.  
    

    Our fingers can form roots 
    

    in the right temperature. 
    

    I’ve seen it happen before.
    

    Now the air smells like snow and the radiator clicks and 
    

    I can’t find a stranger to embrace and I am 
    

    stranger without you. So I write you missives, 
    

    turn letters around the spit in my brain 
    

    for warmth and wait for you; another season.
    

    Natalie E. Illum is a poet, singer and disability activist. She loves giraffes, house plants and whiskey.

    Natalie E. Illum is a resident of Mt Pleasant.

    NA

  3. “Liminal” by Sandra Lizet Ovalle Gómez

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    Liminal I rhyme with urinalI don’t quite know my name in spanish I exits in the in-between spaces, the crevasses that few people see I see change happen all the time.I begin and end with lBackwards I readlanimil which rhymes with chocomil – the drink of mexican childhoods I came to be from some scientist’s mind or so I like to think. I am sophisticated. I don’t like to be used in everyday speech instead introduce me as:the now and not yet the Holy Saturday the waiting roomPurgatory I am a lobby hosting all that wishes to be and is now what it wasn’t before and it’s both I am confusing and philosophicalso meta, so abstract My parents don’t fully recognize me. They are purebred animals.I am an ethereal mutt— a solovino, an aguacatero, a street dog. I don’t play by the rules. I mix and don’t matchI make the elites cringe. I make witches come out, their covens form around my strange shape. Liminal like your skin -> neither white -> nor black, like the sound of your voice, like the pain you carry and the meeting of the two. I am liminal. Say me loud, LIMINAL L-I-M-I-N-A-Lmy letters contain ANIMAL, almost.
    

    Sandy Ovalle is a table-setter, a poet and space-curator, rooting her work in the deep faith and strength of Chicane and Latine spiritual teachers. Committed to pro-social systemic change, she has worked in the immigrant rights, climate, democracy, and faith-rooted social justice movements. She writes to inspire, create joy, and dream up justice. A native of Mexico City, Sandy often explores migration, identity formation, grief, and loss. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Latina Critical Feminism and Sojourners. 
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    Sandra Lizet Ovalle Gómez is a resident of Columbia Heights.

  4. “Ephemeral” by Jona Colson

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    Ephemeral
    
	(from the Greek, ephemeros, lasting or living only a day—
    
           short-lived creatures or insects)
    
 
    
A down-draft of a white cloud, or a frog
    
diving into the river like a stone.
    
 
    
Maybe something inside—a skipped
    
heartbeat of a man I tried to kiss.
    
 
    
A mayfly touching her feet to a bay leaf.
    
Some things are best forgotten.
    
 
    
My father snapping a tomato vine,
    
close enough for me to see but not cherish.
    
 
    
I am walking hastily to my own extinction
    
like the luna moth breaking open in rain—
    
 
    
when all my rescues are gone, I’ll remember
    
the pour of milk, a coo of a bird,
    
 
    
my mother’s hand waving through glass.
    

    Jona Colson is an educator, poet, and translator. His poetry collection, Said Through Glass, won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House. His poems, translations, and interviews have appeared in Ploughshares, The Southern Review, LitHub, and elsewhere. He is co-president of Washington Writers’ Publishing House and edits the bi-weekly journal, WWPH Writes. He is a professor of ESL at Montgomery College and lives in Washington, D.C.
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    Jona Colson is a resident of Dupont Circle.

    Previously appeared in Capital Queer: A Pride Celebration from Washington Writers' Publishing House Reprinted with permission of the author.

  5. “Seeing” by holly mason badra

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    Seeing
    
 
    
I.
    
 
    
“Koi,” in Japanese,
    
is homophonic for the word “love.”
    
 
    
Koi fish can recognize
    
the person that feeds them.
    
 
    
Circling your mother’s
    
pond,
    
 
    
they open their wide mouths
    
to vanish the pellets.
    
 
    
 
    
II.
    
 
    
Klimt’s ladies in gold
    
 
    
	Flowers in their heavy amber hair
    
	 
    
Subject of the female body
    
 
    
	A hunger
    
 
    
 
    
III.
    
 
    
“Don’t look directly at it,”
    
you say, “I know it’s hard not to
    
 
    
because I was doing it, too.”
    
 
    
“I’ve never seen it so close,”
    
I say, “and so bright orange.”
    
 
    
“It’s pink,” you say,
    
“I think we see colors differently.”
    

    Holly Mason Badra is a queer, Kurdish American writer living in Northern Virginia. She is the associate director of women and gender studies at George Mason University. She is the curator-editor of the forthcoming anthology, Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora, coming out summer 2025 with The University of Arkansas Press.
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    "Seeing" previously appeared in Bourgeon. Reprinted with permission of Bourgeon.

  6. “Nobody Knows the Will of God” by Amuche Nwafor

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    Amuchechukwu is Igbo for
    
Nobody knows the will of God.
    
It also means God willing or Inshallah.
    
I was named by my father,
    
Who named me after his sister. 
    
My name is a marker in this world
    
Of my patriarch.
    
Of my father’s land. 
    
Of Nigeria.
    
Amuchechukwu is such a fitting name
    
For a woman who does everything by faith.
    
I might not know where or how 
    
I will land but I often take leaps,
    
And while
    
I never land perfectly on my two feet,
    
I’ve never fallen on my face.
    
It is the will of God
    
That keeps me on my knees. 
    
My name is a marker 
    
Of my patriarch.
    
Of my father’s land.
    
Of Nigeria. 
    
I wear my name like a crown. 
    
It is a jewel
    
From a country that I’ve never been to. 
    
Every year, I put up miles in the sky
    
Traveling back and forth 
    
To my mother’s land
    
But I’ve never been to my father’s.
    
I’ve never been welcomed into the arms
    
Of my aunties and uncles abroad. 
    
At times my crown is heavy.
    
Sometimes my name is a burden. 
    
It reminds me of a culture and identity 
    
In which I am loosely acquainted. 
    
Sometimes I feel like a guest 
    
In my own presence,
    
Or a shadow of who I am supposed to be.
    
I only know Nigeria through 
    
Jodeem,
    
Prayer songs from my childhood,
    
And some movies, but mostly Afrobeats. 
    
Seventy percent of Uber drivers in the DMV are African.
    
And many of them are Nigerian.
    
Every time I book a ride,
    
I am reminded that I am 
    
The only Amuchechukwu that does not know
    
The state in Nigeria where her father is from.
    
I do not know the village 
    
of my father’s fathers’
    
Or their mothers’.
    
My father was prophetic in naming me.
    
Maybe it is by the will of God
    
That I must stand alone
    
As Nigeria’s forgotten love child.
    
I am a diamond in the rough.
    
My father is the pressure 
    
That adds value to my shine and luster. 
    
Maybe his abandonment is a gift.
    
My name and my life are jewels
    
That I alone,
    
Have had to learn how to treasure. 
    
Heavy is the head that wears the crown. 
    
Amuchechukwu.
    
Nobody knows the will of God. 
    

    Amuchechukwu Nwafor (Amuche The Poet) is a DC based writer, performance artist, host, event curator, educator and teaching artist. She is a first-generation born Black American whose poetry touches on the diaspora, sexual advocacy, mental health, and the female experience. Amuche considers her poems to be still life paintings of intimate experiences, emotions and observations. Her debut collection of poetry, Salt Water Roots, was published October 2024 in collaboration with the DC Poet Project and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Through her writing she aspires to heal, grow and inspire people from all different walks of life.
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    Amuche Nwafor is a resident of Brookland.

    Previously appeared in Salt Water Roots by Amuchechukwu Nwafor. Reprinted with permission of Amuchechukwu Nwafor.

  7. “Claustrophilia” by Hailey Leithauser

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    Claustrophilia
    
 
    
 
    
Cherry Crush is my favorite lipstick.
    
When Worlds Collide, my movie of the week.
    
Why don’t we paddle on out, you and I,
    
to that small place in the lake where the moon
    
is skirring to drown. She’s lonely up there
    
in a way only she knows but I know
    
a good thousand ways to be near.
    
Why don’t we try a new game named Fleas-
    
in-a-Thimble, why don’t we shake up
    
a cocktail called a Neutron Star?
    
To be honest I have a body unhappy with space
    
between bodies, to be truthful I’m hearing
    
a rumor you do your best work in the clutch.
    
Why don’t we start a hot dance craze, the Grace
    
Under Pressure, open a roadhouse,
    
A Face in the Crowd – I’ll wager I could
    
tighten a cold coal into a diamond, frottage
    
a bundle of sticks till they flame; I’m betting you
    
could scrounge up a mattress the size of a match
    
box, carry a torch which burns the house down.
    

      
    

    Hailey Leithauser is the author of SWOOP, (Graywolf 2013) winner of the Poetry Foundation’s Emily Dickinson First Book Award and the Towson Prize for Literature and SAINT WORM (Able Muse 2019). “Claustrophilia” is from a new manuscript, poems from which have appeared or are forthcoming in Agni, the Gettysburg Review, Poetry, the Yale Review and Best American Poetry 2025.
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    Previously appeared in Copper Nickel (Fall 2020) with permission of the author

  8. “Feminine” by Vivian Ealy

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    Feminine: 
    
“she who suckles”
    

    Benevolent body, noble and vehement.
    
I am 
    
lollipop lip job, born to bear, 
    
bear it back home, all 
    
the way down. A luscious break
    
down queen, 
    
prone to poignancy 
    
and toddler-like tantrums
    
of the tenth degree.
    
Bubblegum blush
    
colored handgun,
    
cigarette ash creator, cretin of
    
cobwebs and bronzer, eyeliner and 
    
lipliner and whateverliner.
    
Thirsty shell erotica, pig-organed Venus lady 
    
I am
    
clocked in porcelain,
    
a genital-bound pig back
    
Red Sea populus talk, ruler of the
    
sterile, sultry, stupid of the
    
ravage, plunder, pillage.
    
I am
    
limbs, knock-kneed
    
mouth, open.
    

    Vivian Ealy is a recent graduate from The George Washington University where she studied English literature, Spanish, and creative writing. She is moving to West Virginia in the fall to teach high school English for Teach for America. She dedicates her poems to her angel cat Lincoln.
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  9. “Against Identification (for Willem Arondeus and Frieda Belinfante” by Luke Johannes Sutherland

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    AGAINST IDENTIFICATION
    
for Willem Arondeus & Frieda Belinfante
    

    Transsexuals are not cowards
    
but if you dare look at us
    
and let “brave” fall from your lips,
    
don’t shrink from any side eye
    
sizing you up.
    

    Is it brave to desire,
    
to act on that desire?
    

    Bearing the wet bite
    
of Amsterdam in March
    
with bombs in tow, hung
    
-over from amphetamine
    
fueled nights of throwing 
    
sand in cogs, a gay rave 
    
by any other name;
    

    the smell of singed cardstock
    
stuck smartly to the suit collar
    
of a level-headed butch,
    
or to the wrist of a militantly
    
flouncing faggot (prelude
    
to a dead fascist,
    
tastes better than sex,
    
feels better than symphony.
    

    There is pleasure in the forge
    
-ry, of murder sabotaged,
    
eight hundred thousand 
    
now unidentifiable, still 
    
alive outside the camps—
    
for now, for today. 
    

    Is it desirable to be brave,
    
to act on that bravery?
    

    Transsexuals are not brave
    
but necessary, inevitable. 
    
Passports or identity cards,
    
all documents burn:
    
write it in my blood
    
if you must.
    

    Luke Sutherland is a writer, librarian, and publisher on Piscataway lands, so-called Washington D.C. His debut chapbook Distance Sequence won the 2023 OutWrite Chapbook Contest and was published by Neon Hemlock Press. He was a finalist for the Larry Neal Writers’ Award, the Black Warrior Review Flash Contest, and the SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction. He is an interviews editor at smoke + mold and co-founder of the DC-area trans small press Lilac Peril. You can find him online as @lukejsuth.
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    Previously appeared in CAPITAL QUEER: A PRIDE CELEBRATION FROM WASHINGTON WRITERS’ PUBLISHING HOUSE (WWPH, 2025). Reprinted with permission of Jona Colson.

  10. “The Root of All” by Natasha Sajé

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    The Root of All
    

    burns a hole in your head  
    
sprouts wings and flies 
    
won’t bark up the right 
    

    unless you shell out or marry it
    
hand over fist penny wise or not
    
occasionally pound dumb
    

    after a certain yearly sum it can’t buy 
    
you know what but up to then 
    
finders keepers losers 
    
 
    
reapers picking millet from a field
    
or apples from the cart upset
    
during short sell and hell to pay 
    

    someday not today I’ll take 
    
bruised ones fallen 
    
into gutters so as not to lose 
    

    my skirt or need to pluck 
    
a tin spoon from a sow’s ear
    
I want more but won’t bite
    

    the fingers that squeeze me  
    
time is not blood from a turnip
    
so pay as you go or go as you wish 
    

    chew the bacon 
    
and bring it home like my hand 
    
knit sweater bought on thrift 
    

    that will burn when I do 
    
since it can’t pass 
    
through the eye of a needle
    

    Natasha Sajé was born stateless in Munich, Germany, and grew up in New York City and its suburbs. Her books include The Future Will Call You Something Else (Tupelo, 2023); a postmodern poetry handbook, Windows and Doors: A Poet Reads Literary Theory (Michigan, 2014); and a memoir, Terroir: Love, Out of Place (Trinity UP, 2020). She teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program and lives in Washington, DC.
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    Natasha Sajé is a resident of Cleveland Park.

    Previously appeared in The Future Will Call You Something Else (Tupelo, 2023). Reprinted with permission of the author.ross

  11. “Dear Mom” by Richard Hamilton

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    Dear Mom,
    
(Passing at the age of 52!?)
    

    On cancer crowding what is mouthed
    
The poorly drugged Gods rarely pardon.
    
Her face lily dark as a Roman coon
    
Death-cleaved egregious unlike brown
    
Fatal to the limp choice-word. I held out
    
For Lucy under fetid moon. (J. Marion Sims
    
Opaque as rain, without sense. The enslaved
    
For experiment, drift past her flowers 
    

    Dormant inside privatized ground,
    
Dream-littered with hypodermic needles.
    
The ghastly scent is gone bouquets
    
By speculum and “betters’ I suspect
    
That nothing ever flowered.
    

    *
    
Are hours for which nothing can be done
    
Her likeness, mine, being outside? Provider
    
Insurance heaped clownishly high like pears
    
Are gold leaves. The look of mendacity
    
Moss green a seedling immedicable
    
Woes. And just who provides, provided we fall?
    
Incipience, and perhaps it all began
    
The Day Lady Died, the stentorian 
    

    Red of indifferent lights, lives to save
    
Like a child to his goldfish bowl.
    
Everything stops (the air) but party to
    
Wonder is bright sheet music.
    
Was her likeness, mine as to smoke, water
    
The promise of tears that nobody hears.
    

    *
    
To hate. Today that pail of fire ants
    
You hurled at God in the form of a son
    
His claim of innocence that afternoon
    
Like sorting metaphors for the right
    
Warrants a trip down southern roads
    
Past poor white carrots of color. Dust-fed
    
Farmers in plain overalls boiled
    
For the young ‘gal’ that dared stand up.
    

    If I had my way, those gouged and chided
    
To mind, that boy who called you nigger,
    
Would loot confounding constellations.
    
His father’s needful office, like pink eye
    
Would yield science and so-called rational aims.
    
The soil and sinew would have their say.
    

    Richard Hamilton (he, they) was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and raised in the American south. A poet and critic, his poetry has recently appeared in Lana Turner Journal, Tahoma Literary Review, Obsidian, and Notre Dame Review. Richard is the author of two books of poetry, Rest of Us (Re-Center Press, 2021) and Discordant (Autumn House Press, 2023). He holds and MFA in poetry from the University of Alabama and an MA in Arts Politics from NYU.

    Richard Hamilton is a resident of Southeast DC.

  12. “Let Me Go” by Zoe Carver

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    Let me go Like a ghost, she whispersLet me goShe comes to me around every street cornerHer face is buried in every crowdAs it blurs into the hustle, she breathesLet me goCraw the bird that flies past my window, and it is herAnd it sighsLet me goLet me go like the wind that catches some sparrow’s wingLet me go like rain washing down the sidewalkAnd the slow swish ofour galoshes in muddy pilesAnd she is a part of me, or daredTo always dare to beLet the days flood with time thick like waterPlease, she begs, and it is a growing thunderLet me goLet me go like the fruit that bloomed and soured inthe wicker basket by the sinkAnd as the specks of mold fetteredIts once smooth fleshShe laughs and squishes its rotted body in her handsJuice running over her fingersNow seed deep in some faraway earthShe smiles that ghostly smileLet me go
    

    Zoe Carver is an emerging writer and 2025 graduate of George Washington University, with a BA in International Affairs and minor in Creative Writing. Mainly a fiction writer, her work has been published in October Hill magazine, Rainy Day magazine, and Capitol Letters magazine, where she is also a senior editor. She is originally from Portland, Oregon, often trapped in the policy world of DC, and more than happy to carve out space for the beautiful literary community in the DMV.
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    Zoe Carver is a resident of Foggy Bottom.

  13. “the river flows” by Adriana M. Martinez Figueroa

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    the river flows
    
wasn’t this where the river ran through?
    
where the water raged
    
after the expulsion and exile
    
after the violence
    
after the flood
    
didn’t the river run from the mountain?
    
						its haven?
    
didn’t it make its way down
    
under bridges
    
through dams
    
weaving through bacalao and other freshwater fish?
    
swept through the family
    
					swimming in the cold?
    
pulled lagarto into river,
    
						down
    
									down
    
until it reached a new town,
    
											cogiendo pon?
    
wasn’t this where the river ended—
    
meeting the crush of waves
    
where sweet meets salt
    
where blue meet bluer, greener, brighter,
    
																																		deeper?
    
in the end,
    
	isn’t an ocean
    
		the place
    
			where river
    
				goes to sleep?
    

    Adriana M. Martínez Figueroa (they/she) is a bisexual Puerto Rican writer, editor, and sensitivity reader. They hold a B.A. from Iowa State University in Women and Gender Studies with a minor in US Latinx Studies. Their words can be found on Bustle, Tor.com, Boricua en la Luna (2019, Até Mais: Latinx Futurisms (2024) and Good For Her: An Anthology of Women’s Wrongs (2024). They live in Washington, DC with their husband.
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    Adriana M. Martinez Figueroa is a resident of NoMa.

  14. “Saint Jovite” by Carlota roby

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    Saint-Jovite
    
 
    
 
    
You used to talk about traveling
    
like an ethereal spirit,
    
seeing a horizon without end
    
from the window
    
of a small house, nestled in the mountains.
    
Perhaps it was Saint-Jovite where you envisioned yourself;
    
we surrounded you on that journey and watched
    
the machines indicating your heartbeat
    
and your breath.
    
It was a tragicomic image;
    
we were there,
    
expectant,
    
as if death
    
were about to announce herself.
    
Perhaps we were waiting for her to open
    
the door of the Intensive Care Unit,
    
to glance at our shoes as she passed by
    
to await some esoteric experience.
    
But death, as we expected,
    
did not come.
    
It only came in other forms,
    
eyes darkened
    
fumbling for an exit.
    
As the poet said:
    
Where did we expect to find death?
    
It was right in front of us,
    
raw and cruel,
    
a wounded beast,
    
while we held your hand and told you
    
— sometimes lying —
    
“the nurse is coming and they’re going to increase your morphine dosage.”
    

    Carlota Roby is a Venezuelan/American poet and human rights attorney. She loves cats, democracy and freedom.
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    Carlota roby is a resident of Adam’s Morgan.

    Previously appeared in my book of poems LILITH published by Tintapujo and Vocales Verticales

  15. “Sagittarius A in the corner of my room” by Oread Frias

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    He is not a bed but a black hole. I do not sleep in 
    
but descend a liquored well pressed against itself. 
    
He does not swallow but tempt absence,
    
and in this way he is any other star.
    
I do not rest but stretch into a grave.
    
These are not sheets but his event horizon,
    
dense enough to bend light like a lens
    
through space, invisible. 
    
He is not a surface but a boundary, 
    
not to say I move beyond him,
    
or call the mind to picture passage. 
    
Rather, so much gathers at that distant edge.
    

    Oread Frias has no idea what she’s doing and hopes no one finds out. She likes to drink tea and eat good food. She writes about identity and obsesses over the little things. She’s working on a book of video game poetry. Oread is on Bluesky at lovelyoread.bsky.social.

  16. “Ode To My Sandals” by Regie Cabico

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    Ode to My Sandals 
    

    Oh, ache of pavement! 
    
Oh,  Dr. Schrolls with 3 black straps  
    
Wrapping metatarsals.
    

    Oh, soft sandals that should come 
    
With jelly rubber balls –  
    
 My slippery seals in a circus! 
    

    When I walk along the SW Wharf 
    
For a Pain Killer cocktail 
    

    My feet beg to be squeezed 
    
As if they were size 10 Meyer lemons 
    
Strolling in a summer storm  
    

    My arches want the knuckle strength
    
Of a tenacious, tender carabao to plough  
    
My knotted fields of plantar fascia
    

    And the dry pebbles of my phalanges 
    
Those piggies popping the leather 
    
Scraping a hole into the hard sole. 
    

    At night, my sandals scatter  
    
Like a couple on the verge of divorce
    
One detests my stompity floppity beat 
    

    The other caresses the sore arches  
    
Of tippy toe balletic relevés  
    

    These are not therapeutic sandals or sexy sandals 
    
They are Peppermint Patty sandals 
    
Well,  one is Peppermint Patty 
    

    The other is Marcie
    
They may not be very sexual 
    
But they’re very very queer 
    

    Regie Cabico is the author of A Rabbit In Search of a Rolex (Day Eight, 2023) and is the interim executive director for A Gathering of the Tribes in New York City.
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    Regie Cabico is a resident of Union Market.

    Reprinted by Permission of the author, Regie Cabico

  17. “Nocturne: Roses” by Malik Thompson

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    October, & the roses lose their season.
    
The fragrant things fall & wither,
    
petals of soft blood scattered
    
along wind-kissed pavement.
    
Tonight, the neighborhood is flooded
    
with starlings & their sweet racket,
    
dark clouds flitting 
    
between recent trees. A slow bend
    
in the supple branches, 
    
the outspread hand I extend
    
to this autumn night’s black teeth. 
    

    		//
    

    We stroll through an autumn night’s black teeth,
    
& he speaks of low-wage jobs & savings.
    
His anxiety crawls between my lips,
    
& a wave of tar slaps at my stomach’s
    
crimson lining. From within a veil of stale
    
air, he faces the street of redlined houses
    
& voices possessive desires.  
    

    		//
    

    Even the voice possesses desire—
    
birdsong. The poisoned starlings’ racket.
    
Mote of black silence between myself &
    
this strange man. If I could gather a field 
    
of broken hours; if I could cleave wind 
    
with these long hands; if
    
what lay between us were merely 
    
bad air swept into blunt crescent—but it is
    
October, & the roses have lost their season
    

    Malik Thompson (he/they) is a Black queer person from Washington, DC. Having worked in independent bookstores for many years, he is also the former Co-Chair of OutWrite DC and has taught workshops for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Hurston/Wright Foundation, and other organizations. His work has been published in the Cincinnati Review, Denver Quarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships and residencies from organizations including Cave Canem, Lambda Literary, the Anderson Center, and Monson Arts.
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    Malik Thompson is a resident of Mt. Pleasant.

    Previously appeared in Radar Poetry. Reprinted with the permission of Radar Poetry.

  18. “The Levee” by K. Rose Dallimore

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    The Levee 
    

    The water scratches and laps
    
at her denim body 
    
with the quiet rage of 
    
a disappointed mother. 
    

    Her stance is strong–
    
the trees on her side, 
    
twisting their roots securely
    
around sneakers and shins.
    

    Wind and rain have whipped
    
wild points into her hair 
    
and her brown eyes, sans serif, 
    
stare down the work ahead.
    

    Her writhing heart
    
looks still from here,
    
and her face does not bear passion;
    
suffering is not always 
    
so marketable.
    

    Her arms are strong
    
but bruised, shaking,
    
and so, so tired. 
    
She remembers a time she held 
    
flowers, car keys, canned beans,
    
a letter that made her smile.
    
Do you think this was a choice?
    

    Love her. 
    
Please love her. 
    
Place lilies by the riverside. 
    
Send a prayer to the moon.
    
Tell someone you know.
    
Tell everyone you know.
    
Put your lips to hers, even, 
    
if you can bear the current. 
    

    If the dyke breaks,
    
so will the rest.
    

    K. Rose Dallimore is a D.C.-based poet, playwright, educator, restorative practitioner, and disability advocate. Her writing has appeared in Rough Cut Press, Anodyne Magazine, The Wild Umbrella, The B’K, Lenticular, the Alexandria, VA city bus system, and Genrepunk, among others. She published Intake, her debut chapook, with Bottlecap Press in 2024.
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    K. Rose Dallimore is a resident of Adams Morgan.

  19. “hanahaki” by Ishanee Chanda

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    hanahaki
    
 
    
i pull flower petals from my mouth
    
two at a time
    
and i stuff them into the cracks
    
of her bedroom as i leave –
    
three behind the dresser mirror,
    
two behind the candle in the corner,
    
four tucked in the space beneath her pillow.
    
i take the stems with me and cough
    
up the blood once i’m gone.
    
when she asks me about it the next day,
    
i do nothing but smile at her with
    
daffodils between my teeth.
    
they say it will come for me in two
    
months, if not three,
    
and i spend my time looking at her instead.
    
the rose of her cheeks,
    
the silk of her fingers,
    
the roots of her hair.
    
after all, they’ll cover my grave
    
when i leave.
    

    Ishanee Chanda is a prose writer and poet from Dallas, Texas. She is the author or two books of poetry titled “Oh, these walls, they crumble” and “The Overflow.” Ishanee currently resides in Washington, D.C. where she works full-time in the field of humanitarian aid. She enjoys playing badminton in the summer, singing loudly to Taylor Swift, and spending time with her little family.

    Ishanee Chanda is a resident of Mt. Vernon.

    N/A

  20. “Sweetness” by Peter Montgomery

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    Sweetness
    

    Waking early to get to work,
    
I slip silently from the sheets,
    
leave the serenely snoring dog
    
beside my slumbering husband.
    
In the next room I flick a switch.
    
Light falls on a patchwork heart,
    
red and pink, stitched from squares
    
and irregular triangles of soft cloth,
    
glimpses of rose, green, and gold,
    
gift from the deep-sleeping quilter,
    
owner of his own beautiful heart.
    
Thinking of the industrious hours,
    
I pause to look up Saint Valentine,
    
learn that he is beekeepers’ patron.
    
“That’s perfect,” I think, picturing
    
all the colonies of persistent bees,
    
carefully tending to their honey.
    

    Peter Montgomery is a researcher and writer, lover of poetry, and admirer of the DMV’s literary community. He has published poems and essays in Beltway Poetry Quarterly. He lives in Brookland with his husband and their rescue dog.

    Peter Montgomery is a resident of Brookland.

  21. “Salt Water” by Amanda Esteves Correia

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    Daughter of Iemanjá I am
    
Iemanjá
    
who crossed the Atlantic Ocean
    
from Africa
    
to Brazil
    

    Portuguese men
    
stripping naked 
    
African men
    
stripping Their identities
    
from Them 
    
they took everything
    
gave Them a price
    
wounds
    

    Iemanjá bathed Their wounds 
    
in salt water
    
in the waters of Bahia
    

    In the same waters
    
I bathe myself
    
I jump seven waves 
    
thank you,
    
Iemanjá
    

    The salt water burnt like fire
    
healed
    
hurt
    
burn 
    
heal
    
hurt
    

    Burnt 
    
in Senzalas
    
African women stripped naked black-eyed peas
    
stripped naked shrimp
    
the ritual
    
to Acarajé
    

    Acarajé, Abará, Vatapá
    
we feast
    
in honor
    
of Iansã
    
Goddess of fire
    

    Protect me
    
my Guia
    
don’t touch it
    
Carnaval
    
don’t touch me
    
my three knots
    
three wishes
    
protect me
    
from your fear
    

    Understand Their pain
    
I can’t
    
but 
    
I am from Bahia
    
Salvador
    
Salga a dor
    
those wounds
    
are not healed 
    

    I am from Salvador
    
I am not Them
    
but I am from Them
    
this is Salvador
    
and this is who I am
    

    Amanda Esteves Correia (she/her) is an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park. Passionate about writing poetry and social justice, Amanda uses her writing to explore her identity and experiences. She aims to build a career that reflects her passions. 

  22. “En Français” by Greta Ehrig

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    EN FRANÇAIS
    

    à Éric
    

    Sometimes instead of singing “Alouette”
    
as a child, you wish you had learned
    
a more practical language like that of your
    
old Spanish-speaking roommate and friends
    

    You studied French à l’école cinq ans
    
because your mother studied French in school
    
and her mother before her had thought it proper
    
and of use to young people of a certain breeding
    

    Your mother in particular took to studying
    
the culture, cuisine, and art of France and would
    
later decorate her home with the blue and white
    
chinoiserie you would come to adore
    

    and keep a piano forte in the corner
    
so that Debussy and Ravel
    
might filter the air with an Impressionist light
    
Still, even though you’ve never been to Paris
    

    it has proven useful, over the years, whether in
    
chatting with cab drivers from West Africa,
    
ordering the coq au vin on dates, or
    
flirting with the francophile love of your life
    

    Tu es mon héros, you text him periodically —
    
declaring that not only is he your hero, but also,
    
because of the “s,” the source of your eros —
    
a linguistic holding of the gaze
    

    More recently the two of you thought to keep
    
your brains sharp, you’d take a refresher course
    
and parleriez français ensemble while cooking
    
coq au vin in your own blue and white kitchen
    

    Meanwhile, your matrilineal wishes to travel to
    
Provence and walk through the fragrant fields of
    
poppies and lavender still call to you
    
like the morning songbirds call to you au soleil
    

    reminding you how even when you were a boy
    
in school, you used to dream en français
    
and wake up writing poetry about writing poetry
    
avec une plume d’oiseau  
    

    Greta Ehrig holds an MFA in Creative Writing from AU, where she served as Editor of Folio literary journal and was a Lannan Fellow. Her writing has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith, and has received support from: the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County, MD; the Maryland State Arts Council; and the National League of American Pen Women. She was recently nominated for Best of the Net, as well as a Pushcart Prize in Poetry.
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  23. “For You I’d Create a New Language” by Jasmine Haskins

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    Picking purple petals in a field 
    
With no flowers. Chipping away,
    
At painted nails that happened 
    
To be the shade I mourned. 
    

    Scattered to the wind- 
    
Is what I would like to say. 
    
Oh, how april showered 
    
The flakes, turned flowers 
    

    That included some skin; 
    
Back down to me. Rejected 
    
Damage that will soon 
    
Breed infection within me. 
    

    The tips of my fingers a tinge 
    
Violet, next to the violas, 
    
And I hear violins out of tune 
    
Violently harmonious. Until 
    

    I dove my head into untilled soil,
    
So the doves would stop 
    
Circling my brain like vultures.
    
Plum, is the suckle, that honey
    

    Dripped with nectar they now 
    
Come for, and encumber me. 
    
In their nest, lapping up 
    
The lilac syrup sloppily.
    

    A mess on their chest fulfilling 
    
Their bellies, and breast till these fat birds 
    
Mumble a faint hum and now drained all mums
    
Of juice, from grapes turned wine.
    

    After feverish ferment from 
    
Drunken rants to relent against 
    
Black roses; that have rose from
    
The palm of my hand. Knelt on rice 
    

    Forming welts of maroon 
    
Patties. On my knee, a sting from a
    
Bee makes me rise from the sod.
    
As I wince at the sun now sought
    

    Through the shrouds of drapes, they 
    
Formed clouds on the window. Bold in color,
    
The tone gold to others of a wedding band 
    
Ready to marry in the meadow of sweet flowers.
    

    Showered down on me is the ray,
    
Portrayal of hope denotes dismay. 
    
For this may, the parades shall march,
    
A brilliant band through the remnants 
    

    Of your garden. Hardening the parched
    
Patches you once whispered batches 
    
Baked, now packed with the lackluster-
    
Words of love, you called language. 
    
 
    

    Jasmine Haskins, is a GMU Alumni and Creative Writer/Poet from the NOVA area. She has a passion for poetry and finding new ways to get involved in her local writing community. Using her words in news ways to explore the ideas of human nature through rhetoric and complex emotion.
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  24. “Promulgate: Triple Haibun” by Danielle Evennou

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    Promulgate: Triple Haibun
    

    I.
    

    To make known openly on Facebook and basement fraternity parties that there’s nothing I love more than eating pussy in West Hollywood hotel rooms. Pleasure at the cost of debilitating loss. My first love destroyed. My family estranged. My friends repel me. Gay boys sympathetic toward my effeminate ex-boyfriend. Everyone looks at me like a lying stranger, a voyeur in the dorm’s collective shower. Shrouded in pain and politeness, I move to a city that doesn’t know me. Search for everything I need on Craigslist. 
    

    eat pussy freely
    
West Hollywood love story
    
in search of touch me
    

    II.
    

    To make official in law the way our bodies can intertwine. I imagine illicit bath house scenes because I’m too shy to interview at the front desk to be the token “bi-woman” who they let in. Fill up the emptiness with MidAtlantic Leather Weekends, quirky strip clubs, and a Sean Cody account. Irked at the insistence of closed-toed shoes at the Eagle. Bored in a sex dungeon. Follow the handprints on the sheets to where I fit in. Doing whatever it takes to avoid cocaine in Brooklyn.
    

    the law of bodies 
    
names the token “bi-woman”
    
cocaine on the sheets 
    

    III.
    

    To force into action, generations of community who never stopped defending. Tranquil Northampton crockpot bubbles up. Roils. Cauldron of Los Angeles fires melting provocative sculptures. Meanwhile, trans people claw together their paperwork. Marching in the rain makes the rainbow an irrelevant t-shirt from Target, selling us out publicly to appease the current powers, facing certain mutiny.
    

    community force 
    
clawing together paper
    
melting the rainbow
    

    Danielle Evennou (she/her/hers) is a writer who grew up in suburban New Jersey. For over a decade, she has kept herself busy by hosting poetry readings, workshops, and open mics in Washington, DC. In 2016, she founded Slipform, a writing workshop that explores gender, sexuality, and formal poetic structures. Her poetry and memoir appear in apt, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dryland, and Split Lip Magazine. Her chapbook, DIFFICULT TRICK, is available from dancing girl press. With the help of therapy, she is learning how to calm the f*** down. 
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    Danielle Evennou is a resident of Langdon.

  25. “My Struggle” by Jessica Austin

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    Our very own lebensraum: the Gulf of America, Greenland, and Canada, too.
    
I fear I’m overstepping here, but President Jackson’s portrait is back
    
In the Oval Office. My heart goes out to all the very fine people in the crowd,
    
He said with a wink. It’s the Inauguration, after all. Out with the old: Critical Race Theory, 
    
In with the new: Great Replacement Theory. I’ve seen his right hand man
    
Gesture vaguely at multiculturalism and German values, like it’s his
    
Manifest destiny to assuage the AfD of their past guilt.
    

    I’ve seen the executive orders, too, and I think to myself
    
Legally speaking, do I even exist? And for how much longer?
    
You see, kids, gender is a spectrum. At least, it used to be. Talk about
    
A thought terminating cliché. Now it’s just a single letter on a birth certificate,
    
A driver’s license, a passport. With a few snips here and there…
    
But there I go again, thinking I can solve all my problems
    
With surgical mutilation. My K-12 education is showing, 
    
And it’s scar(r)ing the children.
    

    By some accounts, I’m a well-groomed male. Because, well, I’ve 
    
Had the surgery. It was pioneered by Magnus Hirschfeld, you know. He practiced 
    
Radical gender ideology, too, and they burned his books for it. Queerness, you see, 
    
Was a Jewish perversion, and now it’s anti-American teaching. 
    
The enemy from within, as defined by the presidential pen. 
    
A modern Dolchstoßlegende: a Democrat, a gender extremist, and a cultural Marxist
    
Walk into a bar, and George Soros pays for their drinks 
    
While the TV blares, “Kamala Harris is for they/them.” And it’s true, 
    
I use gender neutral pronouns. At least, I used to. But I don’t talk about X anymore, 
    
I deadname her like the productive citizen I am.
    

    Sorry, I’m forgetting myself, what is it they used to say? Trans women are women?
    
But tautology is so impotent in the face of male violence, isn’t it?
    
Just grab them by the pussy, if they even have one,
    
To protect girls’ sports. Never mind that they’re children.
    
No, sexually exploiting minors has much more to do 
    
With pronouns and a change of clothes, 
    
And he cleans up real well. 
    

    Jessica Austin (she/her) is a queer, trans writer living in Washington, D.C. She has attended the New York State Summer Writers Institute and the Tin House Winter Workshop as a 2025 Winter Scholar. Her work has been published in Lilac Peril and the citizen trans* {project}.
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    Jessica Austin is a resident of Petworth.

    Previously appeared in the citizen trans* {project}. Reprinted with permission of new words {press}.

  26. “Corrective to the Forgetting” by Sunu P. Chandy

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    Corrective to the Forgetting
    

    Of the 80,000 words in the English Dictionary, 80% are loanwords from other languages
    
 
    
When I commemorated Dr. MLK Jr., Day
    
with the children in 2025, I said it plainly,
    
we have more emboldened
    
haters now. We will need your reminders
    
of solidarity across borders, across
    
identities. Race, national origin, who we love,
    
all the many ways we may identify. In Moana 2
    
do you remember how they sought out 
    
connections with those who are different, 
    
those across the sea? Do you remember 
    
how people with different skin colors 
    
and backgrounds sat down 
    
together? With enthusiasm 
    
and connection, instead of borders
    
and conquest. Do you remember 
    
that wayfinder, and how 
    
she wanted to connect? 
    
 
    
I will tell you what I am learning now 
    
from my daughter’s history
    
class. The ways analyzing the art
    
can tell you so much. Those blue
    
and white patterns show you 
    
that Chinese people had some influence
    
in certain places. When you see 
    
florals, and geometric patterns, 
    
you can know Arab people once
    
traveled to a particular region. 
    
 
    
And, in the same way, did you know 
    
this English language
    
was built from so many other 
    
languages? Do you know that 
    
ballet, illusion, café and dragon
    
came from French? Pretzel, 
    
kindergarten, and poodle 
    
from German. Drama and geography 
    
from Greek. Espresso and lava
    
from Italian. Siesta and tornado,
    
from Spanish. Karaoke and ninja
    
from Japanese. Chocolate from Native 
    
languages, Aztec, to be specific. 
    
Typhoon and ketchup
    
from Chinese. Algebra and lemon
    
from Arabic. Glitch and schmooze
    
from Yiddish. Cashew and flamingo
    
from Portugal. Moped from Swedish. 
    
Taekwondo from Korean. 
    
 
    
Can this help us remember,
    
we are one? One global family? Remember,
    
in Moana 2, how the wayfinder 
    
sought out people
    
from across the sea? Bangle, 
    
cashmere, shampoo, and cheetah, 
    
all these words from India, 
    
from where my parents came from,
    
from the many languages 
    
there. I will say it plainly, 
    
yes, the haters do feel emboldened,
    
but we, we, know better. 
    

    Sunu P. Chandy (she/her) is a social justice activist including through her work as a poet and a civil rights attorney.  She is the daughter of immigrants from Kerala, India, and currently lives in DC with her family. Her award-winning collection of poems, My Dear Comrades, was published by Regal House and features cover art by Ragni Agarwal. Sunu is currently a Senior Advisor with Democracy Forward, and on the board of the Transgender Law Center. Sunu has been included as one of the Washington Blade’s Queer Women of Washington.
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    Sunu P. Chandy is a resident of Van Ness.

    N/A - this poem was not previously published

  27. “TV and Me” by Bernard Welt

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    TV and Me
    

    I have been hanging out with TV—as I like
    
To call him—for years, and now
    
We’re finally going to make it legal
    

    I remember thinking so often: the men
    
On TV–They’re so cute! Till one day
    
I realized: Schmuck! It’s TV that’s cute!
    

    TV was dashing, well-traveled
    
Sensitive, entertaining as hell
    
Always ready with a joke
    
Or a reassuring word.
    
And oh my God, the things
    
That guy knew about. There’s, like,
    
Nothing I can think of
    
That he’s not an expert on
    

    A long time passed before it
    
Snuck up on me: we weren’t
    
Just friends any more. Like a real
    
Lover, he was always with me
    
Even when we were apart
    

    At work, out with friends, I’d
    
Catch myself thinking: When
    
Will I see him again? What’s he
    
Up to tonight? Maybe I should
    
Check his schedule. Was he
    
Thinking about me? Then
    
The next time I’d see him, it was just
    
So endearing: he’d saved up a ton
    
Of wonderful things to share just with me
    

    I worried: How do you tell real love from
    
Infatuation? I knew I yearned for him
    
But I wondered: Did he . . . desire me, too?
    
I mean, he never made a move
    
But maybe he’s just old-fashioned that way
    

    Things got serious. More and more
    
He talked about us being together
    
Same time next week, then months from now.
    
Before long it seemed like we found reasons
    
To be together every day
    

    Seasons came and went
    
And we were still together
    
TV was ready to tie the knot
    
While I was still on the fence
    

    Because here’s the thing:
    
TV’s always known me
    
Better than I know myself
    

    I don’t know why it took me so long
    
Maybe I just couldn’t believe
    
TV was as wonderful as he seemed.
    
Maybe I just wasn’t ready
    
For someone to accept me just as I am
    

    But TV—TV made me see that I’m beautiful,
    
That I’m worthy of love, that even my faults
    
Are just opportunities for improvement.
    
And TV—TV really helped me with that.
    

    I brought TV home with me
    
Introduced him to the folks
    

    Mom took me aside:
    
Son, what are you waiting for?
    
He’s gorgeous. And in case
    
You can’t see it, he’s crazy
    
About you. Are you sure
    
He’s gay? Because I’d throw over
    
Your dad in a sec for this one.
    
I think she was joking.
    

    Oh yeah, I saw TV giving my mom
    
The eye, engaging my dad
    
With his banter about home
    
Entertainment centers
    
And gardening implements.
    

    He’s just so full of charm
    
It’s like a light that shines
    
Out of every pore. If
    
He has a fault, it’s that
    
Once he gets turned on,
    
You just can’t shut him up.
    

    No one’s ever given so much
    
Of himself to me and it’s like–
    
I don’t know, like he needs
    
Nothing from me but devotion
    
And he makes that so easy to give
    

    One thing we’re sure of: the wedding
    
Will be a small, private affair. Because
    
After all, whatever we seem to be
    
Out in the world, at heart we’re both
    
Happiest when it’s just the two of us
    
Communing the whole of an evening
    
Till I drift off to sleep
    
In the warm glow of his love
    

    Call me a fool, but I feel like
    
This is forever. The two of us
    
Making our own little world, two
    
Hearts as one, eyes for only each other
    

                                                              although
    
Lately the internet has been glancing at me
    
With the strangest look in its eye
    

    Bernard Welt’s poetry has appeared widely in journals, art catalogs, and anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2001 and 2024. He has received a US National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writers Fellowship and a Lambda Literary Awards nomination.
    
 
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  28. “Ode to the Old Growth Forest” by Xochi Quetzali Cartland

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    Ode to the Old Growth Forest
    

    In the kingdom of her body are the redwoods,
    
thighs that rise & rise, the branches of her hips 
    
spread searching for every scrap of light. 
    
At 300 feet high, she keeps a full home.
    
Cambium hiding in the canopy of her bones, 
    
food for the salamanders & marbled 
    
murrelets who like to play in the hollow 
    
of her iliac crest. She is sovereign & stratus, 
    
my sequoia that sweeps the air clean. 
    
With each passing year she collects 
    
some more heft & another ring, 
    
ancient wisdom to withstand rot & wind 
    
& men who carve their names into her 
    
still-living-skin, cruel in their assumption 
    
that she’ll heal up just fine. But she did. 
    
& she does. Because to be big is to be 
    
steady enough to survive. Though it is hard 
    
to be planted—to never escape 
    
your own roots. Her thighs are the throne 
    
that holds up the north coast. 
    
The trunk of her indomitable crown.
    

    xochi quetzali cartland is a queer Mexican poet & seamstress from the DMV. She holds a BA from Brown University in Literary Arts, and her work has appeared in Common Ground Review, Little Patuxent Review, Muzzle Magazine, Death Rattle Literary, ONLY POEMS & elsewhere, as well as supported with fellowships from National Arts Strategies and Brooklyn Poets.
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    Xochi Quetzali Cartland is a resident of Dupont Circle.

  29. “Time Traveling” by Angelique Palmer

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    Time Traveling
    

    You will answer my message, and I will want you.
    
You will answer my question, and we will be on a date.
    
It will rain a mist that’s saved for movie scenes
    
We will kiss a kiss reserved for love stories.
    
You will come to my house to kiss me good night in the days
    
after I will contort myself into the pleasure of back seat bruise
    
and an infamous sky. The first time
    
you will meet my daughter     You will be wearing an
    
inappropriate t-shirt. The first time
    
I meet your mom       	I will be wearing my robe.
    

    We will break into dance often,
    
way too often for it to not be cute.
    
I will tell everyone we passed out Halloween candy together.
    
You will never post anything about me.
    
You will tell me your secrets.
    
I will never post anything about them.
    

    You’ll take me to the ER when I cannot breathe.
    
I will walk your dog during your double shifts.
    
You will call yourself my partner. You will ask me to move my stuff out.
    
I will live out of the bag in the back seat of my car.
    
I will apologize a lot for that.
    

    We will talk about attachment styles and love languages.
    
And that will not mean anything,
    

    I will take you to my office party.
    
You will take me on vacation.
    
Something will break down in the tenuous.
    
Somehow, our wonderful will fade.
    
Someone will remind you of what you haven’t done.
    
I will promise you room to do it.
    

    It will not be a lie.
    

    You will be good at saying no but treating me like yes.
    
You will kiss me properly
    
on my stairs       one more time
    
before you say I took you too seriously.
    
We will both make art about us.
    

    I’ll say I will change your life,
    
months before it is evident,
    
I won’t even rate a goodbye.
    
We will dance together close, intimate– in the middle of the night.
    
Somehow our wonderful will fade
    
into a phantasm, that will learn to haunt me best.
    
I will say I will change your life
    
and hate
    
that it is you who will change mine.
    

    Angelique Palmer is a performance poet, Kindergarten Teacher, and Spoken Word instructor at Wilkes University. She is in her first year of a three-year tenure as Fairfax County Poet Laureate. A finalist in the 2015 Women of the World Poetry Slam, she’s currently ranked 19th among the top 96 competitive poets in the world. Her second full-length book is 2021’s ALSO DARK, on Etruscan Press.
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See poems from: 2024 2023 2022