Cheryll Y. Greene

for Cheryll

for an adolescent eternity
which might have been a year
my dream
was to be editor
of Essence Magazine

to write in the spirit
of glamour and buffed brownness
to cushion the impossible success
such that soft would not mean empty

i remember sitting on a train
maybe fifteen years old afterschool
and releasing that plan
into tight puffs of change
airborne as the radioactivity of not knowing

and when i let drop that image
of myself
in a suit
holding always glossy pages
and breathed in the possibility that
anything might be waiting
that words had their own story
and black shapes to space looped
a miracle always yet untold

i was having one of the moany
self-crashing
scattering faith moments
that might have made me ready
might have let me deserve
might have helped me want
to know you one day

Marta Esquilin

for Marta

on the curled edge of touch
sits a ribbed smile
a cocked squint
and a question

if i am here
a sigh opens
out of vacuum-packed focus
spoke in the cadence
of notes
pinned to bubble coats
towards fall

this is story
about dandelions
gracing train tracks
and bullies and crushes
sealed in the same lunchable

sketched and shaded with drama
smooth darkenings
the faith of gestures

crooked lovability
lives somewhere in here

like a knock up challenge
peter pan brand temptation
here
wherever you are
is the curled edge of tough

where i can be anyone
if i fight for it
____________________
Marta sustains a livable space called the InterCultural Resource Center at Columbia University.
Read all about it here.

Maura Bairley

for Maura

if days had missions
cloaks, clocks and magic wands
so that peace was
a structured quest into faith

or if those barbed points
of intersection
met a quilted place
a made space
of meant limits
in soil-planted yes
fertile like a subtly voiced spell

and if i came upon this pathway
charted with the markings
of hand after hand
lovingly printed into earth

i would look north
i would look east
i would look west
i would look south

knowing that somehow
you had done this

___________________
Maura has built the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Program at Columbia University
out of love and more love.
Read more about the program here