Close Menu
  • 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
    • Craft
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
      • Bookshelf
    • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Poem of the Month
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
MER – Mom Egg Review
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube Tumblr Threads
  • 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
    • Craft
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
      • Bookshelf
    • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Poem of the Month
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
NEWSLETTER
MER – Mom Egg Review
You are at:Home » Tina Kelley – Just One More, Mama

Tina Kelley – Just One More, Mama

0
By Mom Egg Review on October 14, 2021 Poetry

Tina Kelley

 

Just One More, Mama

“Wicked” and “step” are the only kinds of mothers.
Name one mom left breathing in Disneyland.
Orphaned: Bambi, Cinderella, Snow White.
Scraping by with just dad: Belle, Jasmine, Ariel.
Sent to inadequate foster care: Sleeping Beauty and Simba.

When Kate and I play sisters
she always makes us orphans.

Mothers are mere learning tools,
manipulables in the classroom,
something to push against, to learn from,
to erode, or try, until the limits push back.

She says,
If I kick it, I go to my room.
She says,
If I stick my tongue out at it, I get a talking-to.
She says,
If I roll my eyes at it, what can she do?

She plays,
If it’s dead in every fantasy,
more power for me.

Think of the verbs done to a mother:
Inhabit, tear apart, suckle.
Exhaust, enchant, enthrall.
Frustrate, entertain, wear down.
Suck dry, enrich, crack up.
Inspire. Love fiercely. Love selfishly.

Take.

Two stories before bed, and I fight sleep every time,
almost speaking in tongues from the lulling rhythms.
But without me to read these technicolor matricides,
would she ever sleep through the night?

 

Return to “Storied Mothers.”


Tina Kelley’s Rise Wildly appeared in 2020 from CavanKerry Press, joining Abloom & Awry, Precise, and The Gospel of Galore, a Washington State Book Award winner. She co-authored Breaking Barriers: How P-TECH Schools Create a Pathway from High School to College to Career and Almost Home: Helping Kids Move from Homelessness to Hope and reported for a decade for The New York Times. She and her husband have two children and live in Maplewood, NJ.

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Previous ArticleMichael Montlack – Stevie Nicks as Fairy Godmother
Next Article Abriana Jetté – Persephone Responds

Comments are closed.

June 26, 2025

Two Emilys by Andrea Potos

June 15, 2025

MER Bookshelf – June 2025

June 13, 2025

An Interview with Domenica Ruta, Author of All the Mothers

June 11, 2025

The Fun Times Brigade by Lindsay Zier-Vogel

June 11, 2025

Eleison by Laurette Folk

June 11, 2025

tether & lung by Kimberly Ann Priest

June 4, 2025

MER Poem of the Month – June 2025

May 27, 2025

Melissa Fraterrigo’s The Perils of Girlhood

May 27, 2025

Incidental Pollen by Ellen Austin-Li

May 27, 2025

Bone Country: Prose Poems by Linda Nemec Foster

Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube Tumblr Threads
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Submit
  • Contact
MER - Mom Egg Review
PO Box 9037, Bardonia, NY 10954
Contact [email protected]

Copyright © 2025 MER and Mom Egg Review

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