• 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»MER VOX»Poetry»Rachel Neve-Midbar – Poetry

Rachel Neve-Midbar – Poetry

0
By Mom Egg Review on March 14, 2023 Poetry

Rachel Neve-Midbar

In the Union

 

We never ate the mollusks nor wore away at the sepulcherean seal. We joined forces with the many, arms woven through the crook of our neighbors’, we made our way forward. And where was forward? For wherever we ventured eventually the gate swung down, the spikes appeared, the signs all read closed. To stop us, to block us, to halt us in our tracks. We talked. We talked and talked, mostly to each other, our words spilling out like the red spit of oral infection or blood blocked that will spill from ears, nose, throat, eyes, like the tears of The Pietá, the mother who cried her son’s blood, carnations budding from marble—that saxifrage of womanhood, shut, shrunken, lost. No, we never broke open the shells to empty life down our throats, to swim in our own salt. Instead we would insert metal or rubber or plastic or pills that retained our water and clotted our veins. We were women. We didn’t care for our bodies; we gave them over. We handed them willie nillie to others. In a cornucopia still, limpet-like and lovely, we continue the slow, salty slog along the surface of the earth.

 

 

 

Poet and essayist, Rachel Neve-Midbar’s collection Salaam of Birds won the 2018 Patricia Bibby First Book Award. She is also the author of the chapbook, What the Light Reveals. Rachel is a current PhD candidate at The University of Southern California where her research concerns menstruation in contemporary poetry. You can read her own menstrual memoir essay Traveling the Red Road in The Account. More at rachelnevemidbar.com

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Previous ArticleNatalie Marino – Poetry
Next Article Jessie Zechnowitz Lim – Poetry

Comments are closed.

Recent VOX Posts
March 14, 2023

Mothers Respond – MER Online Folio

March 14, 2023

Angelique Zobitz – Poetry

March 14, 2023

Lesley Wheeler – Poetry

March 14, 2023

Sarah Sassoon – Poetry

March 14, 2023

Amy Ralston Seife – Poetry

March 14, 2023

Jessie Zechnowitz Lim – Poetry

March 14, 2023

Rachel Neve-Midbar – Poetry

March 14, 2023

Natalie Marino – Poetry

March 14, 2023

Suzanne Edison – Poetry

March 14, 2023

Marisol Cortez – Poetry

March 14, 2023

Christy Lee Barnes – Poetry

March 14, 2023

DeMisty D. Bellinger – Poetry

March 14, 2023

Alise Alousi – Poetry

March 6, 2023

Elisabeth Weiss – Poetry

March 6, 2023

Jenn Givhan – Poetry

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

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