J. Khan

Two Poems

Chicago Black Site

imagine us both locked inside
a windowless room with two chairs,

French bread rolls, a case of Cali red,
and a place to shower & shit

surely we would be lovers
even if we spoke untranslatable languages

perhaps you would hum your favorite song,
I would foot-tap a beat.

our tango would be invisible
except where we touch upon eachother

& wouldn't our bodies inscribe the darkness
with handsweep and tongue.

Instead, one of is hooded & hand cuffed
to a chair in a cinderblock room

with no place to shit.
The other hums Metallica & lights a cigarette

before attaching genital electrodes.
Both rendered invisible

even as the one begins the daily visitation
of small violences upon the body

of the other who wonders:
what precinct is this where police

and suspects alike still root for the Cubs.

Echolalia

somethin' will happen to take

the fear outta your bones an' the sweat off of your eyelids

an' drain them to the sweet winds

                                               ―Dolores Kendrick, Hattie on the Block

Head

thrown back,

she hurls

the quivering vowel

of grief.

Her tongue

shrills air.

She is vibrance.

Her voice

flows out and back

again

in a wavering refrain of loss,

an open mouthed spell.

Her sister joins,

and then an aunt, and women

from where

she

does not know,

they raise a capella of sorrow.

And all the voices you do not know,

they gather their fury in to one.

And then they teach

their young

what it is that we have done.

J. Khan has published in diverse magazines including Unlikely Stories, Rigorous, Chiron Review, shufPoetry, Barzakh, Fifth Estate, and califragile. In 2019 he is slated for Coal City Review, San Pedro River Review, I-70 Review, and Writers Resist. He has served as a guest editor for Glass: Poets Resist, was nominated for The Pushcart Prize XLIV, completed a chapbook, and is mulling a book length collection.