Barbara Conrad Beauty Queen Her shoes are bolted to the linoleum floor. Practical flats, black and rubber-soled. In a top drawer next to the sink, fistfuls of used tin foil — no waste, no wishes. Before she swapped her office job for a new last name and this tidbit of a life, before she was my mother, she might have been a beauty queen (or a kindergarten teacher she once told me). Now she stands at the window dreaming of fairies with green wings dancing on the lawn. I’m making this up — but look. One is holding a…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Breena Clarke Mama Ascended I have communicated with those who would know. Mama and Papa and Harold and Alice were welcomed in the afterlife, following their harrowing deaths. Their souls were luminous. They said that Mama ascended in the most beautiful sea-green, diaphanous summer dress that ever there was, that there wafted an aroma of gardenia and that there was an infant ready to become the new vessel for her soul. I was heartbroken not to have died at Mama’s side as I had always planned to do. I had accepted the near certainty that I would leave Mama…
C. Jean Blain The Road Called Home She knows this life is round because she keeps coming back. First born of the last born. The only daughter of the only son. She is always brown and braided. Ten toes firmly planted like she never left this ground. Grandma said a woman’s place is wherever she stands. So, she stood. Stood up. Stood in. Stood out. Look at her- Standing. Our ancestors- standing. They are asking for your voice. Remember, there is a road called home and you are always her. C. Jean Blain is a writer and educator, a…
Dayna Patterson God the Mother Speaks of Coprophagia with a line from Maxine Kumin A star implodes and feeds a nursery of new lights. My design. A latrine fly, hungry, presses spongy mouthparts to brown liquid, also mine. There’s no such thing as waste. Only recycling. Fecal meal a redigestion. Pikas haul soft green pellets to the den. Sparrows pick seeds from a steaming cowpat. And you, adventurous kin, drink urine in space. Let anyone with ears to hear listen. You are like toddlers I lay down for a nap, and when I return, the crib, your lips—they’re smeared…
Holly Iglesias OH DEAR Holly Iglesias is the author of three collections of poetry, Sleeping Things, Angles of Approach, and Souvenirs of a Shrunken World‚ and a critical work, Boxing Inside the Box: Women’s Prose Poetry. Holly has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Edward Albee Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Janel Cloyd Bloom There are some days I forget how to bloom how to unfurl my leaves I forget how to open my velvety petals to the welcoming of the sun There are some days I forget that I am tethered to the belly of mother earth I have far reaching roots I am meant to be grounded There are days I struggle to remember to be planted is a gift I must not be fearful of my blossoms being plucked I must have faith in being beautiful enough for others to see the beauty in themselves Life is…
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…
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…