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    Standards of Care
    The Sun InterviewBy Naomi PittsStandards of CareRolonda Donelson on Bias and Anti-Science Attitudes in Medicine

    The reason Black women were used to develop the field of gynecology was because they were no more than property. They weren’t seen as people; they were just seen as things. The controlling of Black women’s bodies started with chattel slavery, but it continues today.

    Milk
    Readers WriteBy Our ReadersMilk

    Pumped for an infant, spilled at the dinner table, used as a tear gas antidote

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Rachael Petersen

Rachael Petersen lives in Massachusetts with her many plants and her cattle dog, Līlā, named after the Sanskrit concept of divine play. She is a writer and PhD student in Germanic languages and literature at Harvard University. (rachaelnpetersen.com)

Poetry

Tassajara

The abbot declared your beloved pit bull had Buddha nature, / so you carried her sixty muscled pounds to the mountain // monastery, where we sat sesshin and she ate wool socks, / a box of chocolates, and eight pages of Robert Aitken.

January 2026
Poetry

Backyard Mercy

A fruit fly fell in my fine crystal glass / half full of five-dollar wine. / Annoyed, I almost flung the final sips / behind a rosebush.

May 2021
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