My teenage daughter, the middle child of three, is curled up at the edge of
I speak in tongues all the things too glorious for language, too acapella for
In my best Sophia Petrillo impression: Picture it: Harlem, 2007. Gentrification creeped its way into
The screenshot stayed. Not where I could see it. Not where it could be dealt
The smell of bergamot grease and hot iron always brings it back—the sticky, humid pulse
I am seventy years old. Seventy. The number itself feels solid, a hard-back bounded volume,
When I’ve told the story about my cousin’s wedding on a plantation to other Black
I wiped your ass before you knew you had one. I didn’t say one mumbling
I met God at a strip mall conjunction of a liquor store-jazz club-Baptist church. Well,
“Have you eaten? “Do you have money?” “How are you getting home?” “Do you say
As a child, I used to wear pants on my head. I mean that quite
There are 25 passages in Paris. They’re easy to miss if you don’t know where
She won’t let go until I do. Like jazz. Reaffirming that I am beloved, she
I arranged a reading with a Santería priestess per my sister’s advice. Our ancestors had
The sky is milky-eye gray over Paramount, Los Angeles. LA has been hurting since the
