“We bring you here to see dead things—” A folio of the supernatural in motherhood * As we enter autumn, the veil between the living and the dead things becomes gauzier; time seems to take on a different meaning.…
Browsing: MER Online
Diannely Antigua ORCHARD REVISITED for Andrés In the beginning, there was no word. So I called him baby apple, conceived in September. I fell in love with the seed, as if it were my own, so happy I would…
Erin Armstrong THE WEIGHT OF BODIES My grandmother cared and carried the weight of bodies. Her ghost stands in the street to speak of bodies. Her ghost stands in the street to speak to bodies. I dug a hole…
Sara Ries Dziekonski INVISIBLE My son has swallowed the potion that makes him invisible I scan the room say Where’s Teddy? Where’s my gooooobs? When he’s ready to bring himself back he giggles shouts Boo— my mother is invisible…
Lindsay Kellar-Madison MILK & MARROW Moon-milk pooled from my body then— wet cushions and capillaries wicked. You refused sleep upstairs, so we stayed— tucked under the yolk- yellow streetlights. A proto-planet of beginnings, we were banished blankets sleeping and…
Barbara O’Dair MONSTER Today I bought a shower chair. I’m not old, just dizzy. Recently, I had to sit down on the tile floor to wash my hair, insult upon injury—when I moved here, I pulled out the grip…
Tzynya Pinchback MENARCHE The summer I turned thirteen. The summer before eighth grade. The summer I learned to climb a tree, launch from the neighbor’s not-up-to-code brick privacy fence, and tuck my body into itself, drop cannonball style into…
Amanda Quaid FARRUCA Just once, she thought the baby’s face looked like her mother’s— only in the blue light, only at a glance, a ghost rippling up the cheeks, the crinkled nose, something in the way she scowled at…
Joani Reese FEVER DREAM In the dark, the collector, cape and hood painted black, knocks three times at my sick mother’s door. He salutes the vast heavens, leans his scythe towards the wall, then saunters to her bedside to finesse…
Nancy Ring HOW BRIGHTLY Hot pink feather, glued by a child. It’s a bird I think, and that feather looks warm. Would that I could pluck it and wear it like a moustache, but it won’t salve these icy…