B. Fulton Jennes Wake Up on Wednesday, Sober sip seltzer water at a party, sober let the dog sniff every tree trunk, sober park between two lines without closing one eye, sober wave to neighbors at their mailboxes, sober climb the stairs into church, sober pass the liquor store without looking in, sober pay the taxes on time, sober tip the server who forgot my water, sober feel fear and not need to douse it, sober look into my eyes in the mirror, sober sleep a full night, dream of flying, sober donate my mother’s clothes to Good Will,…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Elizabeth Lara Kitchen Gadgets Praise the kitchen where the gadgets wait in mute competition, where I stand looking out the window over white peace lily blooms and snake plant spikes, where out of the corner of my eye I catch the philodendron stretching yet another tentacle through the open porch window, green against the yellow of my kitchen wall already dotted with faint tracks of prior invading shoots; praise its tenacity. Praise the neighbors’ houses, distant white behind black November tree trunks, his flying flag, their blue front door, their stories I imagine while the blender growls a bellyful…
Peggy Robles-Alvarado Ode To The Necessary Distance Between Us: A Contrapuntal DISCLAIMER PERFORMED AS INTERNAL MONOLOGUE BEFORE SHARING POEMS ABOUT MY MOTHER: An experiment in giving myself permission disclaimer.this is a disclaimer.here.i came to declamar.declaim.make claims for and against my mother also known as Mami who doesn’t want me to call her by her name.disclaimer.this i claim.i make claims.i have no physical receipts.i am the receipt.i am the product.i am the proof.i am Mami’s historian.Mami is my mythology.and yes as a poet, i doubt the validity of my memory.i am meta.Mami is the matter.the prey.i am…
r. erica doyle wander r. erica doyle is the author of proxy (Belladonna* Books). Her prose and poetry have been published in Best American Poetry, Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Gay and Lesbian Writing, and Letters from The Future: Black Women/Radical Writing among others. She has been a New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellow, a fellow of Cave Canem: A Workshop and Retreat for Black Writers and a Roots. Wounds. Words. fellow in speculative fiction. Back…
Sunu P. Chandy Learning to Hold the Candle Solo parenting a nine-year-old during a Buddhist evening peace ceremony, we are asked to walk from the meeting hall to the pond a block away and place our boats with candles on the pond at dusk. The flames all flicker out during the walk to the pond given the extra windy evening, but the Buddhist monks come by with lighters and give us all second chances. After the second lighting, we learn, only through practice, how to hold the candle closed to the wind but not closed enough that it goes…
Wendy Grossman Praise For My Mother praise my mother and her big-boned beauty praise the breath she takes from me every time an old photo resurfaces praise those photos, sparse the same ones over and over praise especially the faded sepia one barely fourteen, her pixie smile tossed over shoulder proof how fleeting beauty can be praise my mother, she lived for forty-nine years gone now, thirty-five praise my mother whose father wouldn’t let her go to art school too wild for a girl in the 1950’s praise my mother who wouldn’t finish college after she and my father…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen For parents who have lost children, there are personal and highly distinctive similarities in their stories, and there are stark differences. If one is adept at writing non-fiction, one’s innermost revelations will become a helpful blueprint. In Ann McCloskey’s account of her daughter’s death in her book, These Dreams of You, McCloskey has managed the daunting task of creating a pathway from the intimate that leads straight to the universal realm. Even if you have not lost a child, this book is a hard one to get through. At times, through the unflinching and…
Dorsía Smith Silva Requiem my son asks for a baby brother for Christmas / so easily / like going to the drive-through / to get some ubiquitous made-to-order meal / Big Mac with extra cheese / onions and lettuce / what does he know / about the parade of prayers / shoehorned hormone shots / straitjacketed waiting / then nothing / but wind-blown ebbed echoes of please Jesus / hear me Jesus / sweet baby Jesus / another round of stolen surrender / then another / more blood enjambed / scything in rogue repair / someone / tell…
New and Coming Soon Sarah Gutowski, The Familiar. TRP: The University Press of SHSU January 2024. Poetry The Familiar is a narrative-in-poems about female existential crisis. It mimics the bizarre, darkly funny experience of midlife by making literal the multiple “selves” that women often have to embody and employ just to support a family, create a career, and maintain relationships. Fabulist and absurdist, this book features a mix of high and low language, philosophy, and pop culture while exploring the effects of second and third-wave feminism. It’s a book for anyone who’s vacillated between dreams, desires, and ambition on…
Review by DeMisty D. Bellinger In Cathy Ulrich’s second book, Small, Burning Things, she proves again how mighty flash fiction can be. These tight short stories are mostly women- or girl-centered, and all of the fiction brought in some uncomfortable aspect relationships. Small, Burning Things solidifies Urich’s position not only in the world a flash fiction, but in fiction in general. The first story, “A Burning Girl,” starts as a fairy tale would. “There was one day at school that one of the girls start on fire.” Such an absurd line compels the reader forward, including this reader, which…