Mike Gray The Stoic Birds are starting outside already, somewhere in the languid cool. My arms stretch overhead, body sleeved in fatigue, tired skin luxuriating beneath the sheets. A good day to silence the alarm. Burrow and nestle. Be my bed self a little longer. Then all too soon it’s a bright day, full sun glimpsed through creased eyes, and when I register my daughter’s lonely moans from another room, I’m immediately in a is-that-really-the-time? day. A day to lunge out of bed, wipe at her tears, quell the “tum rums” with a rushed breakfast, which means it’s fast…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Francesca Leader Milk and Blood My first child was six months old when I started working. I bought ten kinds of bottles, and she hated every one; she starved herself all day until I got home, then latched on and wouldn’t let go except to sleep. Even through the night she sought me, lips plump and red as cactus fruit, sucking the air until, at two- or three-hour intervals, she woke, whimpering beside me in bed, and I nursed her so we both could rest again. Derin, the Turkish name my mother-in-law chose for her, meant “deep,” and my…
Ellen June Wright Washing Day c. 1950 Hands finger a bright-white diaper, damp— then reach for a peg. She strains upward to grab the line; one more to clip and clip again as others flutter in the breeze, a washing-day ritual. It’s something island women do and have always done like swinging the straw broom back and forth in long motions with aching, calloused hands reaching into corners, like wiping windowsills with a wet cloth and rubbing windowpanes until the outside is as clear as the inside and the world she strains to see is not so far away,…
A Launch Reading Celebrating MER 21 Friday, June 16th 7 PM (Eastern) Online via Zoom Register: https://bit.ly/MER21zoomlaunch\ Featured readers: Margo Berdeshevsky, Annelies Zijderveld, Carrie Bennett, Mary Bonina, Robert Carr , Eileen Cleary, Ashley Cundiff, Merridawn Duckler, Suzanne Edison, Jen Edwards, Kelley Engelbrecht, Lupita Eyde-Tucker, Brandel France de Bravo, Elizabeth Garcia, Marie Gauthier, Pat Hale, Katie Hartsock, KateLynn Hibbard, Livia Meneghin, Gloria Monaghan, Dayna Patterson, Jennifer Pons, Kyle Potvin, Kimberly Ann Priest, Jessica Purdy, Martha Silano, Pramila Venkateswaran. Order a PDF copy of MER 21 Reader Bios Margo Berdeshevsky, NYC born, writes in Paris. Recent books are Before…
Brian Clements A poem about mothers might contain a list of battles, homes, and film worlds where mothers appear, might comprise all instances of mothers of pearl, of invention, of babies and all wars, might list their unacknowledged legislation of high school drama and grade- A unpasteurized mother’s milk, and surely would itemize the value of story time, of time for homework, time to come home. But the poem must not leave out one hard fact: mothers lose their children; whether to college or work, whether to illness or a bullet through the living room window, whether to drug…
Margo Griffin How to Signal a Ceasefire During War I slipped my feet into the warm, pink, fuzzy slippers my daughter Maura bought me three Christmases ago, before our war began and back when she liked me. The gift was sweet and pink like cotton candy and as soft and cozy as a bed of cotton balls, a stark contrast to the bitter, sharp-edged words my daughter has gifted me with since. I sighed, rolling my eyes as I puttered into my kitchen, careful not to pound my heels like a frickin’ elephant as I passed her bedroom door.…
Melanie Faranello Becoming Early Days I stick your tiny fist inside my mouth and cry. It’s the size of a plum. We have no regard for time, or the falling from day into night into day. Together, we defy the clock. You nurse with terrifying instance as though maybe, maybe, you can crawl back inside of me—the closest we will ever be, the most we will ever inhabit the same space. We do not understand that everything will forever be in effort to recreate this impossibility. These are the things nobody tells you: Spit-up crusts my hair for days. Sticky…
Annie Marhefka You can’t belong to the sky Her lips pressed against each other in a glistening pout when she said it, the melted ChapStick spilling over the top of its plastic cylinder in her chubby-fingered grip. The lid had been lost months ago and I had meant to toss the ChapStick while she was napping or playing in the bath. But then I never could take my eyes off the bubbled surface of the water when she was in it, capable of slipping out of sight, her sweet face dripping from air into water, and I never could…
Alexandria Faulkenbury In My Toddler’s Room In my toddler’s room, the internet stalls and sputters and gives up halfway through loading a page on my phone. I drop it into my lap in frustration. The darkness envelopes its illuminated screen, and I can no longer see it even though I still feel its warmth on my thighs. I stare at the wall where bursts of light dart across the dark space like a kaleidoscope. It is bedtime. Nay, it is well past bedtime. And I am trapped. Any parent who missed the memo on how to lay your child…
Ashley Knowlton Sprouting Specks Freckles sprinkle the top of my son’s nose– distinct like the rings of a tree, telling how many summers he’s spent under the sun and in the dirt with digging hands and dusty toes. Sapling only has several modest specks, but one day I’ll look up and he’ll be grown tall with summers of freckles smeared across his cheeks, up on his shoulders and down his lanky limbs. Today, though, I’ll nuzzle his little nose with mine, inviting our freckles to greet. Ashley Knowlton teaches English, and she writes poetry for enjoyment. Her work…