Obsession/Addiction In her poem, “Mentation,” Devon Balwit writes, “What would it be like to pour anyway, /again and again.” This folio examines the mind caught in obsessive and addictive loops, through the lens of the caregiver. The poetry—gorgeous in its rich language, harsh in its honesty and sadness—is like strong liquor in the belly. Experience the sound and movement in these lines of poetry by Sonia Greenfield: I used to drink bourbon and wait for the ice to melt into the shape of a fetus. (“The Pull”) The poems expand beyond the parameters of substance abuse, underscoring the generational…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Write Now: Mother writers reflect on joys and challenges of motherhood A Folio Curated by JP Howard This folio consists of poems and essays by poets who are all mothers – some first time mothers and others seasoned mamas with grown children. These pieces speak to the joy, complications, struggles and often worries that come with being a mother. As a mother of two suns (sons) I know that we are not always invited to submit work that speaks to how we walk through the world as mothers and this short folio allows us to do just that. My…
THREE POEMS FROM REBECCA FOUST AN AUTIST’S MOTHER REFLECTS afraid to die before you but in this wild dark New Hampshire meadow fireflies glow like downed pulsars all incandescence like your face & no trace of errant gene or what perished to breed such rapture light DIS / ABILITY a stubborn perseveration / tenacity to slog the 8-year path to a math degree from Cal inflexible with routines / reliable punctual he never fails to make the Sunday call lacks affect / no drama lacks theory of mind / see empathy below lacks empathy / he…
THREE CREATIVE NONFICTION PIECES FROM LINDA MICHEL-CASSIDY TWENTY-TWO She thinks she needs to have her life figured out. At her age, I was in a rigorous graduate program, terrified of each day, unable to free myself from a misery of my own creation. Please, I want to say, be young and untethered. Go rock climbing. Take a three-month gig at an arts camp. Get that weird hairless cat. Do stand-up. Have your car towed and then contest it. Land in the ER for various minor mishaps. Let friends of friends you barely know stay at your apartment. Sublet…
THREE POEMS FROM ANGELA NARCISO TORRES LILLI’S URN Jolted awake by a flash— a text from my college freshman awake in his dorm at 2 a.m. I rub sleep from my eyes, find an audio clip he’s written for solo cello— Lilli’s Urn, he names it, for the pup who arrived on his sixth birthday, his companion for a decade before we lost her to cancer. Four minor notes plucked in a slow chuffing beat— the stifled sobs of mourning. Bow dragged over strings a cello moans, whale sounds from the deep. Outside, the wet boughs of a birch…
Dorothy Rice HOME MOVIES Grace arrived home and lingered in the darkened hallway, unnoticed. Her nineteen-year-old daughter, Lucy, home from college for the weekend, sat cross-legged on the floor, too close to the TV, hands in her lap, rapt as a toddler watching Saturday morning cartoons. Images of her as a baby flickered on the flat screen. Lucy in the backyard pool, what Red called the cement pond, her chubby arms flailing in puffy orange floaties. Grace sucked in her breath, pressed her purse to her belly as if it might absorb the gut punch of what she…
TWO POEMS FROM DAYE PHILLIPPO SOON, SPRING Snow is falling softly past the windows, no wind to drive it, so the flakes take their time, turning, some rising a bit again like the clouds of gnats one sees stirring by the roadside in fall. Mother Goose preening her feathers, my father used to say of snow like this, snow intending no harm, not blinding drivers or the woman walking out to her mailbox on its leaning post by the gravel road. Motherly snow, gently blanketing the garden and house, fences and fenceposts, giving the mailbox a little peaked…
THREE CREATIVE NONFICTION PIECES FROM MARIA BENET IMPRINT At the end of Spielberg’s film, “A.I.,” David, the prototype robot child built with the sole purpose to love unconditionally, survives for millennia in a world ravaged by uncountable and unaccountable transformations that leave it extinct of humans. He is found submerged at the bottom of a watery world by ethereal robots endowed with goodness, who see in David the alpha point of their lineage. When David learns that the world has been emptied of humans, he has a wish he wants his rescuers to grant him. His wish comes…
Jacqueline Doyle CHEATED When Dina arrives at the Social Security office at 9:15 am, clutching the envelope stamped URGENT, there’s already a long line at the door and no seats left inside. The waiting area looks more like an auditorium than a waiting room, with orange plastic bucket chairs lined up in ten to fifteen rows. Well over a hundred people jostle each other, many standing in the aisles, some with babies in strollers and children crawling at their feet, others alone, beaten and hollow-eyed. Homeless maybe, on permanent disability. Any one of them could be her daughter.…
TWO POEMS FROM STEPHANIE NOBLE UMBILICUS Umbilicus, long since buttoned, now invisible, a tightrope I walk, no safety net one misstep a fall from grace. COURTSIDE Perched on bleachers we watch our grandson, Number 22, and his black-jersey teammates play ball against a team in baby blue. Our eyes follow the ball, hands ready to applaud a basket, a maneuver, good sportsmanship. My ears wrestle with the squeak of shoes like tires on turns in a parking garage, referee whistles, blaring buzzer. At our side our eldest’s deep voice Rumbles right down to the soles of…