On our birthday, Thurgood Marshall & I discuss precedent by Raphael Jenkins

You get it, all them bones under Alabama could’ve been put to better use in their living.

⟡ Vote for ONLY POEMS in the 2025 Best Lit Mags Awards ⟡

On our birthday, Thurgood Marshall & I discuss precedent

by Raphael Jenkins

                                —After Tariq Thompson

What of would-be doctors born in chains.
Authors forbidden to carry pencil & paper.
Prospective politicians pecked to death by
Crow, left out to be lunch for vultures. To say
I was first is to deny those who were denied chance.
I hear you—there are billions of stars in the universe,
what we call the sun just happens to be the closest one,
the one that’s still alive. You get it, all them bones under
Alabama could’ve been put to better use in their living.
I see them in my dreams. Sometimes it’s hands reaching
out the muck like reeds in a swamp. Others, a meadow
overwhelmed with tulips, their yellow cups brimming
with yellowed teeth sent skyward like pollen when the
winds blow. I wish I knew what to make of this.

Read our interview with Poet of the Week, Raphael Jenkins, wherein he discusses humor, softness, and being vulnerable as balancing elements of the poetic craft. About the latter, he says:

Empathy is one of a poet’s most useful tools. My primary concern is to make sure I am not writing a poem about injury that also causes injury. If I hurt you while trying to help you, I have failed you. Beauty is a byproduct of compassion, the residual effect of having a heart that beats for more than one’s self. Which is to say, beauty has a role in my more violent poems, but it is rarely number one on the call sheet.