01-24-2023
​
Raina León​
​
BANNED PORTRAIT IN THE MAGA ERA: STUDY SAYS BLACK GIRLS ARE “LESS INNOCENT”
i opened the door and flipped the black lock
of the clear plastic screen with the framing leaves in stained glass
and out into our postage stamp yard
sun-dancing dandelions
yellow heads and the white for wishing
i was making a bouquet for my mother
my father upstairs in the grips of a peace
that comes only after a 16-hour shift in detention
with boys to whom he never showed my picture
it was a boy passing on a tricycle
his mother far behind
that made me rush in fear
back into the house
i wasn’t supposed to be seen unguarded
not presentable and perfect
lock
lock
and down
to the basement for more spring bounty
blush tea roses under the tree bursting
cherry to color a world in petal pink
to go there i had to climb a tall shelf
to find the keys
hidden from little hands
three locks one creaky
method of a child's escape? double-handed body
weight hang to turn the key
barefooted i crept out
careful of fallen pointed branch stubs
to snip and slip in my frayed chemise
a satin basket for all the flowers
then back in and lock the three
and up the stairs
to nestle under my father’s arm
that smelled
of roasted onion sweat
already the flowers had wilted
i threw them away when i woke
no one noticed the ruin
​
GIVE US THE PIG
after too obvious, 1996. david hammons
papi says the pig is dirt
that the whiteness machine wants to feed us refuse
whiteness aches to make us weak
when tito was diagnosed type 1
even insulin had to be swineless
he needed the good human stuff
not what whiteness said was good enough
close enough
because he was human
no refuse
his pancreas heard human
and started acting right
what kind of puerto rican doesn’t eat pork
my titi vilma would say
the papi-kind
the me-kind
and we black too
still
give us
no choice
give us pig
we will split it
call spirits
claim our human
see the cowrie future
rattle and beat the dance calls
in cleaned bones
and you will see
how strong
our spirits
as they
walk
alongside
our human
cell/ves
​
THE ONLY COLOR
verde, verde, verde every color is verde
and i think on federico garcía lorca,
how i read this poem to him, days old,
his whole body less than six pounds on my chest
and now he stands a wild octopus boy
on a chair reaching for the markers.
verde, verde he says, though the uncapped tool
marks page to orange and his father says,
he knows what the best color is.
i say, naranja o anaranjado, he has to know his colors
and go into a diatribe about school,
not being behind. it is not about school.
he is my son and so the box waits:
a check mark of abuses woven into his identity.
will he ever be able to just be the creative child
who says verde, verde, verde for all the colors,
glorified for how his mind stretches divergent?
my husband does not know that the box
can be a casket and each day
we must fight for it not to be.
ahmaud ran on a street lined with green leaves.
lorca wrote a poem. they shot him, too,
so bright. i just want my son
to know his colors and live.
​
-from black god mother this body (Black Freighter Press), selected by Spring 2023 Guest Editor, Gerard Robledo
​
Raina J. León, PhD is Black, Afro-Boricua, and from Philadelphia (Lenni Lenape ancestral lands). She is a mother, daughter, sister, madrina, comadre, partner, poet, writer, and teacher educator. She believes in collective action and community work, the profound power of holding space for the telling of our stories, and the liberatory practice of humanizing education. She seeks out communities of care and craft and is a member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Macondo. She is the author of black god mother this body, Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, sombra : (dis)locate, and the chapbooks, profeta without refuge and Areyto to Atabey: Essays on the Mother(ing) Self. She publishes across forms in visual art, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and scholarly work. She has received fellowships and residencies with the Obsidian Foundation, Community of Writers, Montana Artists Refuge, Macdowell, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Annamaghkerrig, Ireland and Ragdale, among others. She is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online quarterly, international journal devoted to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts. She educates our present and future agitators/educators as a full professor of education at Saint Mary’s College of California, only the third Black person (all Black women) and the first Afro-Latina to achieve that rank there. She supports poets and writers at the Stonecoast MFA at the University of Southern Maine. She is additionally a digital archivist, emerging visual artist, writing coach, and curriculum developer.