Jennifer Gay Summers Mothers Come First My husband and I stood in a hospital corridor, dressed in pink surgical scrubs, waiting to see our baby born. After six long years of miscarriages, in-vitro procedures, an adoption agency, and private attorneys, our time had come. To get this far was like grabbing a balloon the second it floated by. Down the hall, I heard a baby cry in the nursery, and my breath caught in my throat. Just yesterday, Ron and I had accompanied Christy, our baby’s birthmother, to her pre-op exam, and she’d left us waiting in the lobby.…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Elsie Wu Mun Yuet Day I hear Dennis cry. I hear feet shuffling hurriedly. A door opens. His cry is loud, then he’s soothed to silence by the warmth of his mother’s full breast. Rubbing my eyes to clearly greet the morning, I see Mama in Brother Don’s kitchen, her fingertips and chopsticks stained red. She has just finished arranging a circle of bright red eggs on a large plate, placing two more to fill in the center. Mama had earlier explained that her first grandchild is now one month old. It’s Mun Yuet Day, my nephew’s First Month…
Kerry Neville The Last Peach The world is about to end and I worry about my saggy, crepey skin, the way it hangs loose and fast when I push back into downward dog. I stare at my legs as if they are not mine but my grandmother’s (eight years dead). “I grow old…I grow old…I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled,” said T.S. Eliot, who also wondered— Do I dare eat a peach? Sink my teeth into the fuzzy warm flesh? The sticky juice dripping from my lips, down my chin, then neck–hell, why not onto…
Jeanne-Marie Fleming Couldn’t Keep Her My husband leaned against the door frame, hung his head and told our son, Colin, “Mommy is mean; she doesn’t like dogs.” “Dear Easter Bunny,” Colin wrote in third-grade cursive, “Can you please bring me a dog?” That night, I penned in my journal. My son wants a dog. I want a divorce. The Easter Bunny wrote back, “I know you want a dog very badly, Colin, and I know for sure that someday you will get one. I’m very sorry- I do not bring dogs. Thank you for the carrots.” I did like…
Linda Laderman Elegy for My Sex Life What I remember most about sex is how much I wanted it. I craved its spontaneity. Whenever, wherever. If the sheets got a little messy, we’d sprinkle powder on the wet spots, then lay there laughing. We took our time. We weren’t concerned with being caught. We had a van, places to park, and hormones. Almost any position was a possibility. I didn’t worry I’d pull a muscle after I bent my body into a pretzel. It was the 70’s. Now it’s my 70’s. My desire for sex has waned, like…
Kate Neuman Housecleaning, 2020 I sat in my son’s room yesterday afternoon, in this heat-wave, with his air conditioner blasting, watching as he went through the ages of his life’s detritus that have found their way into his closet. I’ve tried to get him to do this at least once a year for the past decade, with no luck, but, yesterday, it was as if no one had ever suggested it to him – the idea born from his head, Athena-like. It’s certainly about time. He just turned 20. He’s in college. He’s six feet tall. He has…
Corynn Kokolakis Building Blocks Building Blocks, 72×48, oil and acrylic on panel, 2014 to 2023 Building Blocks is from my MFA thesis exhibition entitled M(y)otherwork that considers how the practices of mothering and painting influence and inform one another while often remaining at odds. These pieces speak to the constant negotiation of autonomy between child and mother. The paintings present from the point of view of the mother the ebb and flow of autonomy through the stages of development and in turn the stages of mothering. The child’s developing autonomy is suggested through the maternal gaze and direct refusal…
Eloísa Pérez-Lozano A Mother’s Milk Eloísa Pérez-Lozano is a photographer and artist whose photographs have been published in “The National Catholic Reporter,” “aaduna,” and “Montana Mouthful,” among others. Originally a poet, she was inspired to try visual art after visiting a couple of art galleries in Houston in April 2023. She likes working with mixed media including tissue paper and metal as well as using acrylic paint. She lives with her family in Houston, Texas.
Nicole Piasecki Back To Center My six-year old son, J asks me if we can make pancakes before school. He’s overslept, and we don’t have time for pouring, cracking, whisking, grilling, and eating. It is a cereal-or- yogurt morning. “Sure,” I say. My agreement something like apology, an attempt to prove that I am a good mother. We walk to the kitchen together. Until recently, I had been mom #1, the kiss-the-cut mom, the morning-snuggles mom, the drive-to-school mom, the comfort-me mom, the make-the-lunch mom, the stay-home-when-he’s- sick mom because I had a flexible work schedule when my partner,…
Candace Chambliss It Hurts When you spend the weekend at your dad’s house, playing cards, eating McDonalds, and horseback riding and you return to your mother and happily announce that you want to live with daddy and she scoops you up by the armpits, places you on the stoop and says, “Well let’s see if his ass comes back for you then.” And she closes the door. When you ask about cousin Rita, who wore red overalls and a smile as big as sun, and your dad says she’s on crack as if crack is something to be mounted…