• Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER Online
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
    • Craft
      • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Facebook Twitter Instagram
MER – Mom Egg Review
  • Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER Online
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
    • Craft
      • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
MER – Mom Egg Review
You are at:Home»Curated»Motherhood and Guilt»Marjorie Maddox – Poetry

Marjorie Maddox – Poetry

0
By Mom Egg Review on June 13, 2019 Motherhood and Guilt, Poetry

Marjorie Maddox

 

Regret

I was so tired of stepping in it
until it rose to my ankles, my calves,
clinging to my shins like tar
as I tugged my unshaven limbs
this way and that, so, so tired
of it, my flecks of almost-fur coming
off in the thick grasp of it, so tired
until it rose to my knees, then thighs,
gulping in all things varicose and cellulite,
so, so, so, so until it belched itself higher to my waist,
my breasts, my shoulders, shook with the shimmying
of my spasmic attempt to breathe
the teaspoon of desire I was before I was
so tired with its black oatmeal of muck
rising to the fat line of my lower lip
when I mouthed the first line of it
before I was so tired of stepping in it,
remembering how tired I was
from stepping on it, from stomping it down,
long before it rose over my bare soles,
above my unpainted toes,
so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so.


Winner of America Magazine’s 2019 Foley Poetry Prize, Lock Haven University English Professor Marjorie Maddox has published 11 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation and True, False, None of the Above—What She Was Saying (prose); children’s books; Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (co-editor); Presence (assistant editor). See www.marjoriemaddox.com

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Previous ArticleThe Body At A Loss by Cati Porter
Next Article Jules Jacob – Poetry

Comments are closed.

January 14, 2023

Judgment

January 14, 2023

Blair Hurley – Breastfeeding and the Early Sacrifices of Motherhood

January 14, 2023

M.A.M.A. issue 54 – Mathilde Jansen and Lisa DeSiro

January 14, 2023

Maram Al-Masri – Poetry

January 14, 2023

Noreen Graf – After Your Mother Dies and What If I Don’t

January 14, 2023

Cristi Ackerman Wells- My Mother

January 14, 2023

Starr Davis – Strange Fruits

January 14, 2023

Elīna Eihmane – Night Mommy

January 14, 2023

Heather Lanier – Origin Story with Porcelain Duck

January 14, 2023

Kristine Kopperud – When you ask if I miss Dad

Copyright © 2022 MER and Mom Egg Review
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Submit
  • Contact

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.