Author Archives: Jacqui Germain

About Jacqui Germain

Jacqui Germain is a student, organizer and 2015 Pushcart Prize nominee studying African & African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. She enjoys studying the histories of people of color, fighting oppressive political structures and generally having little to no chill. Jacqui has work published in Muzzle Magazine, Word Riot and Anti- and her first poetry chapbook, The Bones, The Salt & The Water, will be released through Button Poetry later this year.
June 9, 2015

Three Poems – Jacqui Germain

By Jacqui Germain

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THE NIGHT A COP SHOVED DON LEMON, after Will Evans

How grotesque 
this kind
of kindred. 
How warped
we’ve become 
in search
of community. 
That we recognize family 
only by the scent of trauma, 
by the searing brand 
below the skin. 

In moments of crisis,
the brand becomes 
a series of raised bumps,
a braille our bones know
but most of our tongues do not.
In moments of crisis,
it’s how we speak to each other
when language has deserted us,
has left our teeth to battle
beneath the streetlights alone.
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