Emily Patterson Near the Fourth of July in a Pandemic The summer you were born, fireworks sputtered and crackled every night for weeks, briefly luminous. Roused from sleep by the weight of you, I heard them still, even as the sky blued. One hand to my belly to catch your kicks, I wondered who stayed awake lighting fuse after fuse—igniting Chrysanthemums and Catherine Wheels, ashes settling in the grass like spent confetti, beads of light growing dim against the dawn. When I finally held your body to mine, near that Fourth of July in a pandemic, I wondered how…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Kelly Sue White River Summer The days of slow flow river time, canoe banked on a sandy spit, the kids- their bathing suit bellies full of cherries in ankle deep water. Little red fingers grabbed at sunlight. Fists full of river silt, coppertone and paw paws heavy heady hanging down. Already some dropped, sandy sugar rot swarmed with flies and ferment. Remember? Remember – I made us necklaces of silver and a single shark tooth. We strung that summer on sterling, fishing line, on river rock, Coors Light cans and white wine from a box, buzzed up sunlight river…
Terri Linton Boogie Down Girls I. Mister Softee croons his hood melody. We clamor and crowd, chests to backs filling our sweltering Bronx street. Sprinkles drip their rainbow sweetness from vanilla-wafered cones. Ready, set, they race down our bleached tanks and tees. Tidal wave hydrants drown our un-sunblocked blackened skin. Clear drops mask yesterday’s tear drops, take flight in search of our crowns. They baptize every coil every wave every cornrow every braid. We are adorned and adored. It’s our time. Summer time. A Boogie Down special occasion. Cars ride by with booming systems, and bangin’ chicks posted in…
Tiffany Sciacca P.F. 1982 10 was a reasonable age. Old enough to appreciate the glow of a firefly in the dark cup of your best friend’s hands. Wishing through her fingers for longer summers, longer legs, less pain. Behind you, the older boys swarm like bees: electric skin and elbow jabs. Pulling invisible rank to make unbalanced teams as their younger sisters resist the calls to cheer, favoring the outfield. And in three years when you are their age, you may still find fascination in that glow. Or bored by fireflies, opt to hang out in bedrooms stuffing tissues…
Elizabeth Fergason Behindland/August Losing my cousin to her body. Me, in my daddy’s old tee shirt covering freckles and a stick shape. Her, so lush, so comfy cushion. Summer sleeps beneath the stars out at the campground near the seashore. Arms not circling but butt to butt, tangential warming. Faces turned away from one another, mine to the dying embers of the campfire and hers toward the sounding ocean, to a future awakening. To the boys who stand in the sand and whistle. That bikini, oh God, I’ll never forget it, all strawberries and faded sunlight and overripe innocence.…
Jennifer Jean NATURE Zuma Beach We crowded the ice cream truck. Sweat & took a dip. Crowded the boom box. Messed with some words to Jackson’s Human Nature—why, why? (cuz they screw us that way!) We ran over there with a dog & his frisbee. SPFed each other’s napes. Watched this teen girl destroy five, prize-winning sandcastles. Kick spires & shell borders. Stab at sculpted faces. Fill moats with bits that people called meat. With crushed cans & straws & foil chip wrappers. We watched cops charge up. But: they didn’t cuff her—so, we turned to our beach ball, the…
Quinn Rennerfeldt Goodwill in the era of girls Her pink pen etching hearts into the top of my hand during our high school math class. End of semester. Breath peach- sweet and warm on my arm. The drone of lecture a lazy bee in our periphery. We are cocooned in the back of the room. I am not sitting, I am hovering. I am not still, I am static crawling like ants in the sand. I am not breathing, I am holding. And holding. Holy. Until her shapes are complete. Outlines filled in. Gel ink and her vicinity…
Mary Lou Buschi Spotting I found myself in the passenger seat of Colleen McGowan’s car doing donuts on the grass in the make-shift park hidden by overgrown Bayberry—Janet Jackson’s Pleasure Principle on volume 10. I had always thought Colleen was one of the quiet ones, not like the girls who ran through the hallways owning space. Yet, there we were spinning, fueled on volume and speed. My home felt just like that spinning car. I survived by learning to spot. I fixed my gaze on the lower right-hand crack in my bedroom window while the details of my brother’s…
Susanna Rich Last Night Before Viet Nam Ron and Skipper drive a base Jeep from Fort Dix to Ocean Grove, walk the boards to the neon lights of Asbury Park, find Mindy and me queued up for sundaes, ask to cut in, treat us, these young men in fatigues, arms straining their polo sleeves, buzz cut, clean-shaven. Ron and Skip are #47 and 48 in our summer tally of guys we meet. Ferris Wheel into the dark sky, bumper cars, hot pretzels. Skip grabs the brass ring on the carousel, wins me the Kewpie baby doll from among prize…
Nicole Callihan summer sorrows all spring robins everywhere but now most mornings mostly mourning doves on the wire or the wires and my left eye bloodshot in the mirror because I went to the car to cry told Eva she had robbed me of a single moment of joy in a pandemic when I tried to dance in the parking lot while we waited for food at a picnic table the soggy onion rings the softshell crab I order every year and never enjoy but I order because I remember once in my mid-twenties loving softshell crab so much I…