Laura Rock Gaughan Murmurations for a Grown Daughter Driving my daughter to the airport, in the sacred space of our car, we’re flying past multi-lane threats— all the normal hazards—when the birds swoop down shadowing our way. Black rain if raindrops could rise after falling, a twisting blanket if blankets unwove themselves in the air. The transformed sky sends us sideways. I course-correct, pull at the wheel to achieve lift-off as if I were the pilot of the flight I’m racing to make. Guiding our capsule up, up to join the great murmuring and leave this world of…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Terrie Joplin Last Wishes 1. I know when my mom said, It’s time, my dad and sister drove her to the hospital to die that night— returning home, drinking coffee, waiting for the doctor’s call—just as she wanted, the lymphoma having burst her body— she, alone behind a closed door, her ashes sprinkled to green a cloistered space, stroke its geraniums, roses, a gathering of bees. 2. I know that after hers, my dad said, No chemo— just knives—and his water wing in the warm ocean could buoy the missing lung quarter but not breathe, and one kidney…
Eve Packer phases/stages: Cycles of the Moon phase 1: new overheard: she’s sweet too bad she isn’t prettier phase 2: waxing crescent: the weapons h.s. sophomore: i remember thinking as i look in the orchard street store mirror to buy my first fitted bathing suit those legs are weapons college sophomore: i remember thinking as i look in the summer camp mirror: that face is worth a kings ransom i remember thinking this can’t be, is not the me who is me semi-phase 2: first quarter post-grad back in the u.s.a.: i am wearing my blue & white…
Puma Perl Too Old to Live Pulling into the 11th Street Garage, Annie’s 1999 Honda SUV suddenly rolled back She pulled the emergency brake, nobody hurt Girls in street turned around and glared at her You’re too old to live one shouted over her shoulder Too old to live? Annie repeated softly and dangerously and jumped out in fighting stance, green hat, black leggings, Docs, granny shades, and a brand-new tattoo on her wrist that said So What – I’m too old to live? she yelled, Come back here and kill me. Try it. You think I’m too…
Cammy Thomas The Little X I have to work so hard to click the little x that gets me out of there. It’s 1 a.m. and I could do, couldn’t I, just one more episode, only the one? Forty-three minutes of invented lives that feel more real than mine. Where are my children now, speeding in cars, making love in the dark– and did I remember my dinner? It’s hard to get back to living: a duller light, the still feel of the world, older machines that lack this glow. Cammy Thomas’s collection, Tremors (Four Way…
Elizabeth Burk How I Mourn the limber body, smooth flesh +++strong bones, resilient spine, the moxie and verve of my younger self. The wish to haul that body from the graveyard +++of buried hope haunts me, stirs images of endless calisthenics and vitamin brews, ++++++nutrient-rich tasteless diets, enemas. My six-year-old self lurks inside, erupts in an argument +++with my husband, sulks, slams doors. My twelve-year-old appears at faculty meetings, craves approval, weeps at frowns. The 40-year-old flirts shamelessly, dances +++past midnight—the Texas two-step, whisky river jitterbug, west coast lindy—drinks ++++++bourbon to ease pain. But they all wake up…
Harriet Bailiss The Line We have, somehow, stumbling half-blind through the sleeplessness and the viruses and the heart-torque of fierce love muddled with fearful uncertainty, got here. We have got through twelve months, almost, and so it is time to draw the line that marks the end of your first year, our first year together. It is an arbitrary line, of course – suddenly we re-name your age by years instead of months, we’re told you can drink milk from a cup, and the dosage of painkillers you can have doubles overnight. Really you are on the faltering continuum…
Caryn Cardello Normal Kids We were in the sandbox, during the normal time before Covid, and I was texting my partner about the possibility that our son might be profoundly gifted, when the child in question leaned over the mound of sand he’d been piling and plunged his mouth over it like a snow cone. I clapped my hands to shock him out of doing it, an old move of mine that never worked on the cat either. “I want to fly up in the sky now?” my son had asked earlier, watching pigeons leap and take off into…
Lisa Fogarty Frozen Spigots My twelve-year-old wants to do everything in her bedroom these days, but we put our foot down and say, “no meals.” Crumbs, bugs, we’re your family and you love us, remember? We compromise on snacks. She snakes by us and up the stairs without saying “hello,” clutching a granola bar. The bar will crumble in her hands, oats forced into hiding in the tall grass of her carpet. The catalyst will be a text message that gets her excited, mad, invigorated — all the feelings and uncontrollable hands. Her bedroom has become a receptacle for…
Megan Hanlon Dear Wooden Swing Set, Steadfast and reliable, you have been my friend during these long short years. Together we’ve passed many damp mornings and long-shadowed afternoons: you, the sturdy fixture that invited my children to crawl on your limbs and hang from your dreams; me, the pusher of bucket swings and the soft landing at the bottom of the slide. As they grew under your wooden outline, they became astronauts and aliens, pirates, gymnasts, and more – and I slipped from participant to audience. While I watched, you taught them to climb and fall and get up…