102. by M. Nzadi Keita
“102.” by M. Nzadi Keita My mother washed your weekly pile of panties while pee tested her own body’s drawstring with a faint touch, then a nudge. She wanted to get done, to skip the field. She wanted to play. After she hung your drawers up by the scant silk rim, made to catch your sweat, she dropped her head into a quiet she could own. This girl. Whom you called “Your Girl” or “Your Day Girl” depending on...
Imagine: A Love Song by Denise Miller
“Imagine: A Love Song” by Denise Miller -for and “from” Sandra Bland Imagine I am not fingernail scrapings— imagine I am not neck, or vagina or legs— Imagine I, am not a knot. Imagine you are not a toe tag. Not rubber band that encircles...
Queen Without a Face by Monteque Pope-Le Beau
“Queen Without a Face” by Monteque Pope-Le Beau ____________________ Share your response to this work, in any form, here Monteque Pope-Le Beau Artist Statement: My purpose came late in my life. You see for over 26 years or more, I have been sick most of my life. Raised by a single mother; she provided a life that was very comfortable and allow me to reach the heights of my potential. My...
Quiet 1 With Eyes by M. Nzadi Keita
“Quiet 1 With Eyes” by M. Nzadi Keita with eyes My husband oversees the world up front where all the parlor-talk is Congress and North Star and Harper’s and what they Know is only what they Read. When I pass, The Readers squint into my mouth. with eyes that you could use to sharpen something. I watch him worry. watch him when I raise my brow watch his eyes burn off my work...
Stirring by M. Nzadi Keita
“Stirring” by M. Nzadi Keita “Being herself one of the first agents of the Underground Railroad, [mother] was an untiring worker…” Rosetta Douglass Sprague By now their breath has thawed; they’re drunk on sleep. A trouser-wearing woman with one hand just sits. Her mouth stays fixed on calling “Cille“– her daughter’s dead name rubbed to burlap strands. A boy whose rough low singing charms the room stands...
Does the sea remember everything? I wonder.
Does she absorb everything? Does she keep it safe?
Virginia Woolf
. . .
The Q: Can you fathom the spectacle that would be created if we moved together, arms outstretched, close enough to touch?
The Q: What echoes through you that longs to take form—a poem, an image, a mark, a whisper of becoming?
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fathoms Feb 28, 2026 -
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