Cristi Ackerman Wells My Mother “I was adopted when I was two weeks old.” So goes the beginning of my life story. I have always known I was adopted, but I never knew my biological mother. Her existence was a pulling question, tugging at me. It felt strange to not know someone with whom I had such intimate beginnings. I was the only one of my peers who was adopted. I was fascinated by biological families. I made a study of how they interacted. How similar they looked and moved. Inevitably my studies resulted in furthering my isolation.…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Starr Davis Strange Fruits My grandma keeps a bowl of oranges on her counter. Petite, luscious mandarins. They always look so perfect. Everything in my grandma’s apartment has always been perfect. It took me years to realize it is all perfect because she is not. It is my nephew’s demand that oranges be present when he visits my grandma in her senior living community. Last time he was here, he say, Grandmama, you don’t like me anymore! I said, boy, why would you say that? And he say because you don’t have any oranges for me! She laughed with…
Elīna Eihmane Night Mommy When darkness falls Night Mommy crawls into your bed with scissors. She cuts your nails and treats your wounds with sea buckthorn oil, she rubs White Flower ointment on your nose so you can breathe with ease and never snore or sneeze. When you wake up in the morning, the Night Mommy stops crawling. A report comes in of her deeds, and you say: Thank you, and: Please. Elīna Eihmane is a poet, artist, filmmaker and mother from Latvia, currently based in Taiwan. Her first picture book One Day At The Taiwan…
Heather Lanier Origin Story with Porcelain Duck In my hand is a porcelain duck with turquoise eyes that look like they’d bat if only porcelain duck-eyes could move. It stands, the duck, if you put it on my dresser. But I’m the one standing, in a crib tall as me. I grip the figurine and banging it back and forth between two bars. Clang-clung, clang-clung. One sound flat, one sound full. Clang-clung, clang-clung. The carpet is fern green. The windows are two and tall and streaming with backyard light in a land I don’t know is called Pennsylvania. I…
Kristine Kopperud When you ask if I miss Dad I know you’re asking if he was ever even here, with me, but more, with you. I know that behind the door to your room, which is missing its stop for the number of times you’ve slammed it, you sometimes still finger fraying pictures of him, your young memory scrambling to unquestion what you see in them and what you don’t see of him now, to protect the stories you peg to those pictures from the disjointing I forced on you, unwillingly but as naturally as dreaming, in making you…
Cynthia Neely A Sturdy Well Built Home For weeks we watch the white-headed woodpecker whittle out a nest in the once-stout beam or our house, the rotting wood irresistible. A nest that might befit a mate – tempting her with a tapped-out invitation –pulled in by the promise of a flawless home. We listen hushed, at the first pale squeaks and hisses, anticipating a perfect perch from which to watch the metamorphosis of bright white egg to fully-fledged flyer. When I was pregnant for the first time (and at 35, I assumed for the last), we carved out space…
Dzvinia Orlowsky Our Dolls Were Naked Our dolls were naked, but our cats stayed partly clothed—a ribbon here, a brown felt hat there, two holes cut and fitted for their ears. My sister and I wanted them pretty for when the priest came to dinner. They’d mew in the hallway, plunk heavy onto their sides. We waited for the priest to remove his hat, smile, extend his cool hand to touch our faces in approval like Christ to his believers. Instead he murmured that we were cruel, headed straight for hell. My sister’s baby doll was large, shiny, round-faced.…
Donna Peizer The Haircut “Lisa,” I want you to get your hair cut,” I said for the umpteenth time using the voice that insists that mother knows best. My 13-year-old looked at me and sighed, worn down by the broken record I’d become. “Okay, but I don’t want it cut too short. Everyone will think I’m a boy,” she said. I scoffed. “No one could possibly mistake you for a boy, sweetheart, no matter what you do with your hair. You look nothing like a boy, and besides, you always wear earrings.” I could barely contain my excitement. It…
Sally Quon Bad Mom I should have left the night I told him I was pregnant, when he beat me until I thought for sure I would miscarry. But I was young and scared, living in a city where I knew no one. I was too proud to admit I’d made a mistake. Too proud to ask for help. I imagine, sometimes, what life would have been like if I had left that night, how different my daughter’s life might have been. Ah, but regrets are something I can’t allow myself. After all, if I had left that night,…
Lisa Taylor Epiphany Nature can be both soothing and instructive. I am working from home and using the back porch as my office. It’s peaceful. I can work and still enjoy the antics of local creatures. Birds, anoles, snakes, butterflies, squirrels, and tortoises are frequent visitors. A mourning dove sits on her nest in a palm tree, nearly invisible to the casual onlooker. The nest is little more than some fluff tucked in the “boots” of a scruffy cabbage palm. I hear the dissonant sound of a crow approaching; and watch as the mourning dove slips soundlessly backwards—off the…