Jennifer Case Things People Tell Me When I Write About Motherhood From an esteemed essayist I have long admired: “Yes, we need to talk more about what women gave up when they left the home.” In a cream envelope,…
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Derek Davidson Medium Start with blue, a cadmium wash spilling through Mom’s studio window, covering drafting table, stool, bookshelves, blue a patina before Mom registers the incoming dark and turns on the light. Then a click of the lamp…
Amy Gallo Ryan Water’s Edge Fifteen fingers worm through mine, burrowing and squirming as they pull hard for leverage. My kids and I are always touching, it seems, but today the physicality has a kind of kinetic fervor. The…
Melissa Mowry Cinderella & I Before I hit the uphill climb of my long, winding driveway, I take a steadying breath and lock eyes with myself in the rearview mirror. Back to reality. My ascent is slow, plodding. As…
Sharon Dolin Two Questions after Marianne Moore My mother would ask, “Is he tall? Is he a good kisser?” whenever a new man entered my life. I always wondered, Did she mean just kissing or was she asking if he…
Jennifer Garfield ghazal for the meadow of my heart forgive me: this morning i walked through a meadow damp and buzzing. i thought, what of the meadow of my heart? even i can barely stomach it. like a poem…
Amy Lee Heinlen In a poem just like this one a woman, once womb, feels the waistband of her jeans how easily her ribs have become lost under belly she wants to focus on words, the bright click of…
Vicki Iorio The S-Trap After rescuing my daughter’s beheaded bobbing Barbie heads from my toilet’s S-trap, Dave, the plumber, tells me he’s really an artist. We sit at my kitchen table scarred with glitter and science project stickers. He…
Katie Kalisz First Book I want to bury the boxes of books in the yard, somewhere the dog can’t dig them up. I want to do it while it’s raining so the pages get soaked, the ink bleeds out…
Cathy Cultice Lentes Red Pens I’m grown now a survivor of childhood and motherhood my own children growing going gone but when I give my aging parents my new poem freshly published needing to hear words like wonderful clever…