James Callan An Otherwise Quiet Space Beneath the sheets, my four-year-old kneads my thighs with his feet. In his sleep, or semi-sleep, the many long minutes leading up to it, he grips my leg hairs with his impossibly hot, clammy toes. It’s not exactly painful, but it isn’t comfortable. It is not conducive to my own chance of slumber, even if it aids my son into his. When the little feet cease their steady, hot compresses, the toes their rhythmic grasp and pull, I listen in the otherwise quiet space and confirm by his even breathing that my son…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Alisa Childress To Mom of Eight Years Ago, I often wonder what you would think of yourself now. Of you have become. You are almost unrecognizable. You have always been the woman who took pride in her appearance. You never left the house without drawing on your eyebrows. You hated not having eyebrows. When you were pregnant with me, you prayed, not that I would be smart, or healthy, or have all my fingers and toes. You prayed that I would have eyebrows. After you and Dad divorced, you wanted to be a nun. You talked to the nuns at…
Hayes Davis Letter to Myself as a New Father January 6, 2009 I know this finds you flushed with new, marveling at her swaddled heft, tiny mouth suckling your finger. You’re picturing the sky butterscotch and currant, the magic hour gilding her tiny legs, her little hand in yours along Sligo Creek’s emerald spring evening, baby ducks lined behind mama, tree frogs tuning up. You can’t wait to hurtle February’s enameled sledding hills, ride July’s swollen surf. All that will happen, but in a few days she’ll pee on you—they all do—and soon four hours of sleep will feel…
Ashley Espinoza 27 Miles “Should I have nursed her inside the room?” I asked my mom. As a single mother I needed her to drive me to the clinic, 27 miles from my home. “I don’t know, maybe?” My mom said as my daughter swung back and forth in the carrier. “It’s okay I’ll just nurse her in the car.” When we got to the car my daughter was asleep. “I hate to wake her up, do you think we’ll make it home?” “She’ll be okay.” My mom assured me. I sat next to my daughter in the back…
Jennifer Furner The Adventurers The locker room was boisterous with women’s voices and running water, and I navigated my way through naked bodies to the showers with my baby in my arms. A woman, fully dressed, sat behind glass watching everyone wash, ensuring no one was half-assing it; a clean body was required to enter Iceland’s communal pools. 9-month-olds were not exempt. I ran some soap over my daughter’s skin, my grip slipping, then collected shower water in my free hand and splashed it at her. She whined and squirmed from me. I sat her, naked, in a nearby…
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…
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…