Cheryl J. Fish I Never Had A Daughter I never had a daughter who play-acted feelings she could not articulate, a busted doll in hand. Who wrote poems and scored goals. Who asked, “mother, who was your first love? Who was your third?” I never had a daughter who flipped tangled hair outside texting among six friends Spooning ice cream into their firm, fool mouths. One friend spoke too frankly so my girl cried. Then she blindsided My every try every tale of recounting mother’s old ordeals. I never had a daughter of charm or dismay. Rebellious …
Author: Mom Egg Review
Kathy Engel For that hour it’s the icefloes I can’t stop thinking about, cascade of endless blue, lonely cold & faces of grieving mothers I’ll always see, year after year, country after country – tonight I pray especially for India, Gaza, Colombia & here & here & yet to name may be to exclude – the list doesn’t end always fragmented like memory, broken shell & we are more than the names of places, more than lists – the ache of separation knows no border or time zone; Vandana’s seeds promise for every loss a planting – today, against…
Annis Cassells Two Daughters, Twice Blessed for Amina and Asila When your daughter reads your poem aloud on New Year’s Day And it’s the first time you’ve heard it read by someone else A tenderness blooms, expands throughout your chest Like the first time her gaze held yours and she said “Mama” When your daughter generously offers her Reiki Bliss Blast Radiates love to friends and strangers, to the world at large Hands around the globe raise, wave, request her blessing Again, you recognize how beloved, how trusted, she is When your daughter is one whom others seek for…
Golda Solomon golda’s sestina ( after Enid Dames’ Lilith’s Sestina) –2021 Wrong and right for me grey through memory. The men I knew as a baby, Jerome I called Romeo. Myself nine years younger than Stanley my brother. There’s power In being a Jewish son, an older big brother. He stands right behind my carriage. Wasn’t his job to protect me from danger That photo has me sitting puppy dog eager in a freshly pressed white dress, my head tilted. I want to kiss him, press my baby hand into his, count the little piggies. Men, even a ten…
Carol Dorf A blessing on your head . . . As an old mother, I better get started with this. Sometimes I say, ok I managed to live until you are 25, could be worse. I really can’t promise you won’t get tired, I certainly did, despite the walk along the bay where coots and gulls floated on small whitecaps, breasts facing the winds, while the sun broke through summer fog, and the smoke, thank god, stayed high in the sky until its only effect was to cool the day; but back to blessings, the mother’s blessing, and I…
Mother Figures – Other Mothers A MER VOX Folio “Mother Figures: Other Mothers” is the first of a series of folios to be published online this year focused on unique interpretations of the Mother Figures theme, which will also be the theme of our upcoming (April 2022) print issue. “Other Mothers” reminds readers that “mother” is a verb as well as a noun. It sheds light on how relatives, role models, mentors, and even nature can “mother.” Featured writers and poets: Margo Berdeshevsky – She Wasn’t Quite My Mother…But… Donna Katzin – For Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hilary King -…
Margo Berdeshevsky SHE WASN’T QUITE MY MOTHER…BUT… I She wasn’t quite my mother. My elder “mother figure” friend would have been 110 years young this May 10. These dark-lit, unlit days we have been led by those who have no such thing as empathy. None ever taught them, mothers leaked no milk of human kindness from their breasts. I think of one who taught me after my own mother had long ago died, one who kept teaching me as I aged but was still her younger friend, one who wanted and needed to make sure that I was going…
Donna Katzin For Ruth Bader Ginsberg At 87, she dies in childbirth on Erev Rosh Hashanah, as the new year struggles to be born. Who will nurture it now? We mourn the wisp of woman who exhausted all her matter, breath — a leaf with only its lengthening shadow to give to the wind. We shiver in the chill, stare into sky abandoned by its angels, look to years we will not live to see that it will take to recover the century of rights we have just lost. As we begin again, we turn to the infant year, squint…
Hilary King In an Almost Empty Room with Ellen Bryant Voigt Last-minute funding blows the poet into town. Little notice, late notice, the difficult location at the commuter college downtown leave most of the hard blue chairs out of work. We who swam against the tide of our lives huddle together, unblinking as fish. She begins with syntax, her research into neuroscience, cognitive dissonance, where she breaks a line now, and why. She reads one of her poems, laughs, coughs, removes her bright silk scarf, taps her fingers on the desk, gets up to write on the board, sits down…
Tsaurah Litzky Alba for my Grandmother You were cunning, strong, fierce as a she-bear with cubs, no less then death could stop your bustling, your clatter, your burrowing among all your pots for that one small pan to fry me one small egg. Mom and I lived with you and grandpa when I was small, Daddy was in Europe fighting in the war to save the Jews, Grandpa’s job was his factory, your job was feeding us. You loved to cook. You were so good at it, aunts, uncles, cousins were always dropping by at dinnertime. you were rich and…