Sharon Dolin Two Questions after Marianne Moore My mother would ask, “Is he tall? Is he a good kisser?” whenever a new man entered my life. I always wondered, Did she mean just kissing or was she asking if he…
Jennifer Garfield ghazal for the meadow of my heart forgive me: this morning i walked through a meadow damp and buzzing. i thought, what of the meadow of my heart? even i can barely stomach it. like a poem…
Amy Lee Heinlen In a poem just like this one a woman, once womb, feels the waistband of her jeans how easily her ribs have become lost under belly she wants to focus on words, the bright click of…
Vicki Iorio The S-Trap After rescuing my daughter’s beheaded bobbing Barbie heads from my toilet’s S-trap, Dave, the plumber, tells me he’s really an artist. We sit at my kitchen table scarred with glitter and science project stickers. He…
Katie Kalisz First Book I want to bury the boxes of books in the yard, somewhere the dog can’t dig them up. I want to do it while it’s raining so the pages get soaked, the ink bleeds out…
Cathy Cultice Lentes Red Pens I’m grown now a survivor of childhood and motherhood my own children growing going gone but when I give my aging parents my new poem freshly published needing to hear words like wonderful clever…
Allison Mei-Li I Don’t Want to Write a Poem After Isabelle Correa I want to birth a poem coax it to life under a full moon, screaming swaddle a poem in muslin cloth stay up all night watching…
Angela Sucich Fourth Trimester iPhone Poet Note: This poem is displayed as an image, in order to preserve formatting. Angela Sucich holds a PhD in Medieval Literature. Her…
Tina Kelley I Used to Write Love Poems Remember how in college we tired of workshopping all those “I’ve been to Paris” poems? Then my father died and I wrote dead father poems, never wanted to be that poet,…
Batnadiv Ha Karmi Colic After Terence Hayes A writing mother traces her tradition to desperate singing rockers, chanting the sound of footfalls. Shh Shh, shh. Sleep sleep sleep. Hush little sweet. Hush baby hush. Hush brain hush. Hush the mind.…
Maria Mazziotti Gillan When I Was Still Young I remember getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning, going down to my kitchen and looking out the window at my neighbor’s house or at the moon or at…
Mary Fontana Meditation Culminating in a Line From My Son’s Comic Book I suppose I was afraid he wouldn’t read. Wouldn’t be a reader. That we would be strange to each other. When he slept through the night I…