Shade Literary Arts

in the damned darkness of winter, we swallow sleep & spit stars. our eyes are closed to paper killings on the streets, the gunk, the...

quick sliver red needles i stole from clocks in a black purse borrowed for a night things stick to me like a rat on glue meant to kill...

For the Old Port, built and built again: I am sure you’re indifferent to me. We are kin, though; we are both refuge and warmth,...

It is when I am in Kansas that laughter enters me through the shoulders makes me stain your chocolate couch with coconut-oil arches…...

the ship conquers the sea and the sea conquers the body and the body does not bare its teeth when it chooses to jump the soul does not...

In the summertime, Black boys disappear; i go into the movie with this knowledge. i am one of 9 people in this movie Theatre, and an...

water ain’t thick enuf to wash me un/woman so I grease my scalp often. a regular oil spill. this pussy ain’t been much ...

mistakenly, I say that I am afraid of us dying, but I am not. I am not afraid of retiring to gardens out in the country or atop city...

I preserve you but come home to find a child has dug you up, crumbs of us strewn in the carpet. The wind left little, but the rest I’ve...

i peel today’s underwear off like a mask let it sink to the floor & stay i scratch my thigh in the process bleed & go about my business...