Nancy Huggett Intercession: ER Waiting Room For all the mothers, fathers, families wombed and unwombed waiting. For reflections scattered in the glass. For every breath of body holding shaking hand or child on lap. For every thought pinned to later, every fear tucked behind the ear with strands of flustered hair. For all the pots left on the stove, radios tuned to static, water running from the tap. To every siren flaring down the street—the startle in the heart of it. For every tissue dropped, purse snapped open, every list compiled, form filed in, blanks between the now and…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Megan Merchant To have a child born in a natural disaster— the rush overwhelmed cactus roots and cracked bed, swept a red truck down the road. A child that burdened from my body of blood and water, one who asks how to unknot his dreams, says he wants to become a tornado. To have a child that calls his headaches faint, is hounded by ways to shadow away from others on the playground. To have a child that changed my under- standing of seize. To take—the earthquake that lifted our house, shook the mirrors. I did not see myself…
Krista Lee Hanson Snuggling My Son to Sleep Haibun Dearest child, contours of your long face softened in the night’s shadows, thin wisps of first facial hair disappearing in the dark. No room for me on the other side of the bed where tubes snake to machines that keep you breathing. We lie on our sides, face to face. I admire your eyelids, nose, cheeks and lips, the whole of you like I did when you were an infant in my arms. When the machines were so much bigger than your delicate baby body entangled in monitor wires. Ventilator…
Adrie Rose Adrie Rose lives beside an orchard in western MA and is the editor of Nine Syllables Press at Smith College. Her chapbook Rupture was published in 2024 by Gold Line Press, and her chapbook I Will Write a Love Poem was published by Porkbelly Press. She is a Poetry MFA student at Warren Wilson College. Her work has previously appeared in Nimrod, The Baltimore Review, Underblong, & has won the Radar Coniston Prize, among others. Back to “Medical Motherhood”
Christine Stewart-Nuñez Advice to a Former Self Always do something: throw a load of laundry in before the hamper overflows; cut up vegetables for lunch; pay the rent; return an email; compose a don’t forget to do this list; change the sheets; scrub the toilet. Who knows when the next crisis will crash your house of cards? When your child hugs you, even if you are frying pork chops for dinner, hug him back; when your child hugs you, even if you are on the phone with the neurologist’s nurse, hug him back; hug your child, even when he…
Suzanne Edison Mother’s Day at Lake Washington I’ve requested a family bike ride on the closed and rippled lake-road where herons suspend over faltering-fish waters. Once vigorous contortionists, the Madrone trees are drooping as they stave off car exhaust and death. My ten-year-old daughter, who, at six couldn’t climb stairs, run, tie her shoes, or ride a tricycle over a sidewalk bump, pedals ahead at cheetah-speed with my husband before she circles back, taunting, why are you so slow— She cruises over fallen sprays of chartreuse flowers that remind me of the neon chemo I shot into her thighs…
Shasta Kearns Moore What I know and what I don’t You’re looking at me like I don’t know. And you’re right, hospital staffer: I don’t. I don’t know what all your acronyms mean. I don’t know the difference between ketamine in a nasal spray and ketamine in an IV. I don’t know what dosage his weight requires. I don’t know how bad this injury is. I don’t know whether the adrenaline coursing through my veins and my child’s blood-curdling screams during the 20-minute (or was it 20 hours?) drive here of “I’M GOING TO DIE!!” are even remotely warranted.…
Dayna Patterson Meeting with the Prosthetics Unit They are careful to use the words residual limb and sound limb never stump or good leg always prosthetic and never fake we heft the fake leg made of metal and molded plasticine a socket for the stump it’s heavier than we imagined but then they remind us a leg is heavy They talk of phantom pain and sensation how they use a mirror placed between the thighs to trick the brain the sound limb flexing and stretching while the amputee looks at its reflection They talk about soreness of sit bones…
Kara Melissa Cerebral Palsy Took All the Words from My Son “If you listen you can hear me. My mouth is open, and I am singing.” -“Fathers and Sons” from Mortal Remains by Patrick Lane I imagine my son. Trying so hard to get a sound out. His mouth is open. His soft, red lips shaped in a big O. Many strangers mistake it as a yawn. “Oh, he’s tired.” No, he’s not, I think to myself. But I smile and walk on. Sometimes it’s just easier. I always choose carefully who is worth ‘the conversation,’ the one that…
Julia B. Levine Septic Shock Because he’s been working hard to stay alive, my grandson’s late to take his first steps, say his first words (dada, hi), his hands inventing a sideways wave for both bird and fish, and he’s so happy at home, but then midnight, his parents race him to the ER, the intensive care team shooting bolus after bolus into his arteries shutting down, his mother beside him, whispering it will be okay in tone and touch, while the surgeon threads a tube down his throat, pumps in breath, antibiotics, sedatives, opiates, and he sways again…