Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone My skin is black my arms are long My hair is woolly my back is strong Strong enough to take the pain inflicted again and again What do they call me? My name is Aunt Sarah My name is Aunt …
Arielle Moss – Damn, You’re Tiny
Arielle Moss Do you know all the things you could do to me with just one hand? Palm my whole stomach? Circle both my wrists at once? Does that turn you on? Did you know my Vans are a size 3? Do you think you’re the first to notice? Did you know my band size …
Philip Levine – Fear And Fame
Philip Levine (January 10, 1928 - February 14, 2015) Half an hour to dress, wide rubber hip boots, gauntlets to the elbow, a plastic helmet like a knight’s but with a little glass window that kept steaming over, and a respirator to save my smoke-stained lungs. I would descend step by slow step into the …
Léo Dangel – Memoriam
Léo Dangel In the early afternoon my mother was doing the dishes. I climbed onto the kitchen table, I suppose to play, and fell asleep there. I was drowsy and awake, though, as she lifted me up, carried me on her arms into the living room, and placed me on the davenport, but I pretended …
Fleur Adcock – Weathering
Fleur Adcock (February 10, 1934 -) Literally thin-skinned, I suppose, my face catches the wind off the snow-line and flushes with a flush that will never wholly settle. Well: that was a metropolitan vanity, wanting to look young for ever, to pass. I was never a pre-Raphaelite beauty nor anything but pretty enough to satisfy …
Louise Gluck – Walking At Night
Louise Gluck (April 22, 1943 -) Now that she is old, the young men don’t approach her so the nights are free, the streets at dusk that were so dangerous have become as safe as the meadow. By midnight, the town’s quiet. Moonlight reflects off the stone walls; on the pavement, you can hear the …
