Welcome to the March 2022 MER Online Folio: Release In her poem, “Summer Arthritis Lessons,” Chrissy Martin writes, “We speak in this language of trinkets and remedies / that say I know what causes you pain.” The poems in the MER Online March folio explore these “trinkets and remedies” for release, relief, and agency. The poets examine everyday objects and infuse them with poetry, magic, and perhaps something sacred, worshipful. Tzynya Pinchback creates a holy space when she writes, “Before the knowledge of pain, man heard the call of sugar. / Skin of innocence shed, Eve built an altar to…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Marie-Célie Agnant from Balafres translated from the French by Danielle Legros Georges EUMÉNIDES My body holds the habits of delirious torrents of rumblings of earth in rebellious jolts Revolt in the body fastened since the first dawn humanity’s tongues hold no words for my whirlwinds My body holds wild words surging sulfur ashes lava and time since the Érinyes in my body is no more thirst mountains stones heated white shards MOTHER’S DAY To imagine you gone this Sunday gone from your life the music scent of chicken bean sauce the cadence of forks the familiar voices You…
Jessica Cuello These epistolary poems are written in the voice of Mary Shelley as she addresses her dead mother, the writer Mary Wollstonecraft. Wollstonecraft died 10 days after giving birth. Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin, raised Mary with unusual strictness and little affection. P. refers to Percy Bysshe Shelley who first visited the Godwin household as an admirer of Godwin’s radical ideas. Godwin did not approve of a relationship between Mary and Percy; Percy was already married and his wife was pregnant with their second child. Percy and Mary met secretly by Wollstonecraft’s grave. When she had her first child, Mary was unmarried…
N.F. Kimball “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” THE BURIAL I had a dream once, of my life standing still. I saw behind closed eyes the Earth forgiving me, the parts of my being I must bury; the nautilus of sound. In this dream I had no body. I had no neck, I had no voice. Wool cloaked the part of my country where I sat, my placenta & my flower. I became blurry, my errors were sisters with the open field. And then – how I existed did not matter. I salvage the…
Chrissy Martin SUMMER ARTHRITIS LESSONS My mother slips a careful sock onto my feet, and even though I am 27 and perfectly capable of dressing myself, I let her. They are excessively thick and knit for July heat, but this is one lesson she passes down. No matter your sweat, keep your feet covered. When I visit her, she lays out a extra fuzzy blanket and when she visits me, a heating pad waits expectantly on her bed like boutique hotel towel origami. We speak in this language of trinkets and remedies that say I know what causes…
Chloe Martinez SEASCAPE “Juego de manos (Hand Play), Juchitán, Oaxaca” [Graciela Iturbide, photograph, 1988; Philadelphia Museum of Art] Chloe Martinez is a poet and scholar of South Asian religions. She is the author of the collection Ten Thousand Selves (The Word Works) and the chapbook Corner Shrine (Backbone Press). Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, Shenandoah and elsewhere. She works at Claremont McKenna College. www.chloeAVmartinez.com
Tzynya Pinchback A SONG FOR DESIRE Before the knowledge of pain, man heard the call of sugar. Skin of innocence shed, Eve built an altar to sugar. I plant one thing of beauty in my garden, no nightshades, a stone path to a tree that explodes, in spring, with sugar. Johnny Appleseed was a capitalist, not a saint. His ministry modest: quick cheap high, land, and sugar. The rich cousins out East had lakeside homes and horses. Us? Endless summer and a tide-chasing mutt named Sugar. Shacked up two weeks, the Northridge quake jolted us from bed. We hid…
Heidi Seaborn SEARCHING FOR SIGNS OF LIFE, A ZUIHITSU ~for Audrey Rían Even in the sluggish hours, I listen for signs of life. And when the moon clicks into the night sky, I hear it calling. According to NASA, we are returning to the moon. We’ve missed her or maybe she’s missed us. I text my friend Lynda. We’ve lost touch. I am worried. Dark side of the moon kind of worried. She texts back. We make space on our calendars. I star the time. When I balance on the white picket fence my love built, I wonder if…
Here’s where we’ll be at #AWP22: We’ll see you at the BOOK Table – T 562! Special AWP prices! Free writing prompts! MER submissions and join our staff info! MER Meet-up At the Book Table Fri. March 25th 11-12 P.M. Meet the Editors! With Jenn Martelli, Cindy Veach, J.P. Howard, and Marjorie Tesser Drawing for subscriptions, issues, and more!
Review by Michelle Panik Barbara Henning’s biography of her mother, Ferne: A Detroit Story, arrived in my mailbox at the same time that I’d been listening to Smashing Pumpkins’ Adore album in earnest. One of my favorite tracks on the album is “For Martha,” which concerns the death of Billie Corgan’s mother. And while the relationships these two writers had with their mothers were drastically different, Corgan’s words nevertheless compelled me to consider the end of Ferne Hostetter’s life while still reading about her youth. And my impulse wasn’t off-base because, from the beginning, readers know that Ferne’s life…