Jennifer Gay Summers Mothers Come First My husband and I stood in a hospital corridor, dressed in pink surgical scrubs, waiting to see our baby born. After six long years of miscarriages, in-vitro procedures, an adoption agency, and private…
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Elsie Wu Mun Yuet Day I hear Dennis cry. I hear feet shuffling hurriedly. A door opens. His cry is loud, then he’s soothed to silence by the warmth of his mother’s full breast. Rubbing my eyes to clearly…
Kerry Neville The Last Peach The world is about to end and I worry about my saggy, crepey skin, the way it hangs loose and fast when I push back into downward dog. I stare at my legs…
Jeanne-Marie Fleming Couldn’t Keep Her My husband leaned against the door frame, hung his head and told our son, Colin, “Mommy is mean; she doesn’t like dogs.” “Dear Easter Bunny,” Colin wrote in third-grade cursive, “Can you please bring…
Linda Laderman Elegy for My Sex Life What I remember most about sex is how much I wanted it. I craved its spontaneity. Whenever, wherever. If the sheets got a little messy, we’d sprinkle powder on the wet…
Kate Neuman Housecleaning, 2020 I sat in my son’s room yesterday afternoon, in this heat-wave, with his air conditioner blasting, watching as he went through the ages of his life’s detritus that have found their way into his…
Corynn Kokolakis Building Blocks Building Blocks, 72×48, oil and acrylic on panel, 2014 to 2023 Building Blocks is from my MFA thesis exhibition entitled M(y)otherwork that considers how the practices of mothering and painting influence and inform one another…
Eloísa Pérez-Lozano A Mother’s Milk Eloísa Pérez-Lozano is a photographer and artist whose photographs have been published in “The National Catholic Reporter,” “aaduna,” and “Montana Mouthful,” among others. Originally a poet, she was inspired to try visual…
Nicole Piasecki Back To Center My six-year old son, J asks me if we can make pancakes before school. He’s overslept, and we don’t have time for pouring, cracking, whisking, grilling, and eating. It is a cereal-or- yogurt morning.…
Candace Chambliss It Hurts When you spend the weekend at your dad’s house, playing cards, eating McDonalds, and horseback riding and you return to your mother and happily announce that you want to live with daddy and she scoops…