MER 21 Launch Reading to take place Sunday, May 21st at the Jefferson Market Library in NYC.
Author: Mom Egg Review
Mothers Respond – MER Online Poetry Folio Curated by Jennifer Martelli and Cindy Veach Featuring: Alise Alousi, Christy Lee Barnes, DeMisty D. Bellinger, Marisol Cortez, Suzanne Edison, Jenn Givhan, Elisabeth Weiss, Jessie Zechnowitz Lim, Natalie Marino, Rachel Neve-Midbar, Amy Ralston Seife, Sarah Sassoon, Lesley Wheeler, Angelique Zobitz Read our March Poem of the Month
You thought you heard a whale, a wail, a wailing. Assumed a woman’s voice, a stance to view the mess. —Alise Alouisi, “I Am Not Your Mother” The poems in the MOTHERS RESPOND folio refuse to look away from landscapes ravaged by war, climate change, racial injustice, reproductive injustice, even though, as DeMisty D. Bellinger tells us in “On Raising Black Kids,” “My heart aches. This is/fucking hard.” These are poems of witness and testimony. They defy life “in Confederatelandia,” as Lesley Wheeler tells us, with their insistence on love, family, and community. “Listen, “ Marisol Cortez demands, “we’re not…
Angelique Zobitz A woman walks into the woods—seeking strength and she finds a metaphor in the woods a brown twig snaps, motes dance dead things give way to new now never—not—husk or shell she’ll stretch so far that she can forget what’s outside the forest. Forage as winged things flutter remember she used to believe in fairies finds that even the smallest stings are still so much better than being the brown twig snapping from too much pressure and not enough sunlight. Recall she is a tree with deep roots, providing canopy for seeds that will grow in her…
Lesley Wheeler Permit for Demolition The front porch collapsed in a slow-clap of bricks. Next morning, a bulldozer coaxed the tin roof down. Hoses settled billows of particles—wood splinters, mold, plaster, clay baked a hundred and thirty years ago. It was tragic and riveting. It drew a camera-phone crowd. The house that’s gone has a twin; they were built by brothers. When the survivor was last on sale, a friend heard a whisper on the attic stairs: We’re glad you’re here. She walked away. This street is a jawbone of mismatched fangs. My wooden four-by-four sits on a tiny…
Sarah Sassoon Tunnels that Lie Under My House I am mother of boys mother of prayers for everyone to live in a house where mothers sleep at night I know of words that dig deep tunnels disturbing deep dreams I know of jewelry confiscated at borders I know what it is to live on a border of sons pitted against sons we all seek shelter under tin tarp wood under deep blue sky all our houses are in danger of slipping during heavy rain Sometimes I wonder if I dreamt last night a year’s worth of dreams to fill…
Amy Ralston Seife Aleppo, February 2023 blanketed by his bedroom walls face down in rubble the cup he newly learned to hold filled with silent dust — his mother trapped in a distant corner when the world lurched and folded her milk bleeding into earth dreams him free floating toward the sun Amy Ralston Seife is a poet and short story writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lumina, Inkwell, The Ekphrastic Review, Literary Mama, Quartet, Indelible, Right Hand Pointing, The Five-Two, Plants & Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for the Best…
Jessie Zechnowitz Lim Following My Daughter Upstream Yes, I would like to slip quietly into a lazy river, to float downstream, buoyed by a swan-shaped raft with a beer in one hand. I don’t really care where it takes me, that it has no tributary or delta. Lazy rivers go in circles, if you’re familiar. But more than anything, I want to be with you, and you’d rather swim. So I haul my swan to shore, chug, and dive. You are long muscles rippling water off the back. You are drawn upriver, up through the damned rocky edges of…
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,…
Natalie Marino Blue The temperature today is above one hundred degrees. The horizon is a hot violet while I pack the car to take my children to the ocean. The freeway will be full of other riders. I will see trees by the side of the road waving their cobalt hands, like wives holding dead soldiers’ navy suits at an afternoon funeral. The sky will have a sad face. Some lucky stars will hide in an indigo memory. I will get to my destination, but the beach parking lot will be closed in a cage. The water will be…