Keshni Naicker Washington Blue To whatever two-legged and four-legged souls that walked by, I must have been a spectacle. A grown woman lying face down on the beach. Hadn’t even made it to the waves. My zigzag trail of shoes, sweater, and face mask signposted my route to this very spot. Borrowing an iota of willpower from the newly hatched turtles I had seen on National Geographic Channel and their flipper-frenzy dash to the water, I willed myself to, at least, open one eyelid. And that was it. Willpower depleted. I was no newly hatched turtle, but something had…
Author: Mom Egg Review
LeConté Dill Growing Tired after Erica Garner Us Daughters Dutiful Heart broke open You Can’t Breathe either Sleeping Beauty—no kiss can wake you, Mama, can make you whole. No maternity leave for activists, name you “warrior” The real revolution came from your womb LeConté Dill was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. She is a scholar, educator, and a poet in and out of classroom and community spaces. Her work has been published in a diverse array of spaces, such as Poetry Magazine, Mom Egg Review, Journal of Poetry Therapy, and The Feminist Wire. She, her…
Lisa Wujnovich I Want to Come Back as a Live Oak Quercus Virginina, curvy southern hardwood, fooling the ignorant, like me, thinking she’s deciduous and sheds her growth. I want to come back with wise beards, hung mossy from my lips and ferns transcendent up my spine. I want my shadow, a restful place, offering palmettos refuge to fan the air. I want unbridled views of sunsets and sunrises, foresight of clouds and storms rolling in— a chance to live and love a thousand years, cactuses spiked in my hollows, limbs, swaying slow motion, leaves, crinkling melodies. I want…
Melissa Coss Aquino Visions of the Mother We Need (excerpt from the novel Carmen and Grace) We put the holy water on our foreheads in the sign of the cross from the small marble basin at the entrance, as if we had been going to church every Sunday. Habits and ritual hold Catholics together when faith and action fail to deliver. Our bodies hold muscle memory of being here and knowing what to do. It was early Saturday morning. Mostly empty, it was that dark, cool, quiet version of church we had always loved. It had been a long time…
Mireya Pérez-Bustillo Everything You Need to Know About the 5th Grade She knew that the vision would come on the corner elm tree because she was so good in school she heard that Our Lady came to the three children of Fatima and that St. Ignatius fell wounded then found the Lord and was saved and that St. Genevieve saved the city of Paris from that barbarian Attila and that St. Lucy gave her life for her faith and they took her eyes so why couldn’t she have the vision too so she stared at the tree ’til her…
Pamela L. Laskin Shared Room: A ghazal To Elissa, 64 You sixteen and me eighteen we shared a room college and its chaos inside our room graduation, jobs, a wedding in bigger rooms after came the babies no longer room for reams of conversation or quiet rooms marriage, sometimes children found us in ruins secrets kept in vaults locked in a room again, we open house to our heart’s room today another sorrow invades our room together we can climb in our shared room. Pamela L. Laskin is a lecturer in the English Department at The City College, where…
Sherese Francis She Who Is The Image of God There’s a holiness that She carries in Her hands, like a Moses budding a kaleidoscope of butterflies fluttering to freedom. She crafts with a mother tongue whispering in Her body, a code of thrones in trees and herbs; Her hips are a lotus blossoming from the mud; She tends a garden of marigolds with the dirt from Her grave; She carries a storehouse of rice in Her hair and on Her journey made a jambalaya constellation to direct Her people home. Oh the glory of Her fractured sun radiating through…
Jane Yolen Grandlings Between us, we have eight, all of whom but one, have a fall of decisions before them. Only one is out of school. How ancient our own concerns of education now seem, new shoes, a date for the prom, notebooks, and a pop quiz, none of which—though it may have felt like it at the time, could actually kill us. The New Mother looks at her child, afraid to touch him, breathe on him, two masks not enough. This virus endangers the joy of birth. She cannot rid herself of a terrible fear. Death–hers, the…
Susan McGee Bailey Rainbow Time Months into Covid-19, time has lost all precision. Days and weeks have a pleasant, blurry quality similar to my daughter’s rainbows. The ones done in water color, no clear lines of demarcation, one color blending into the next. Amy rejects these paintings and turns to her magic markers. “But Amy, your paintings are lovely, they’re like the rainbows we see in the sky.” She looks up. Pauses. Then returns to her drawing. Amy has developmental challenges and this is her first morning home in four months. She is fifty now, but retains the joy…
Serena Agusto-Cox Remote Work Home office view of the quiet yard. The birds bang their heads into glass, a moment of blindness. Mating songs, angry tweets, territorial posturing on feeders. Perhaps, my office is not soundless. Elementary school streaming, dogs barking over microphones, teachers calling out names, looking for answers from the disengaged. Whispered answers, requests to repeat the question. Draft client text, peppered with child-like giggles, rather than COVID-19’s spread. Remote work done by drones among distraction would be less human. In the distance my (l)only child marched into an age of social distance six inches between…