Featured Illustration: Phung Banh

Brown skinned girl

Coconut wet black curls.

Pigment in that burning gaze

Could light any candle that holds your space.

Speak with those honeyed and remedied lips

Sway into the night with your ancestors’ hips.

Never let them take your cinnamon sighs

For a sign of defeated cries.

Across the palms we use to pray

Traced is the history of predator and prey.

Read between your calloused lines

One last time before you escape your vines.

May we grow our pain together

Unroot this earth forever.