Monica A. Hand departed this week. She was a brilliant poet, artist, and scholar, a loving mother and grandmother, and a long-time valued member of the Mom Egg Review community. She will be deeply missed.
Here is a poem from MER Vol. 10 – The Body
Monica A. Hand
DiVida becomes pine
evergreen coniferous with needle-shaped leaves woody cones.
her thick and sticky sap turpentine her scent voluminous, audible
her arms her legs her buttocks her head her toes something to sit upon
soft like a cushion hard like the frame of a crypt
the wood of any pine is widely used
for shade for timber for tar inside its grove for languid longing
DiVida is all these things awkward and magnificent
get a grip Sapphire opines:
you is just like the rest of us beasts – you eat, you shit, and you pray
the Almighty won’t smite you, accidentally, while he is tending his multitude
I got the secret for not getting lost in the fray – take the free
packets of needles ‘n thread from motel bathrooms and the bars of soap too
let them who throw first stones at you be afraid
your plume’s been bitchin’ ever since the planet was covered in forest
and you really were a tree
a tree surrounded by water