Veronica Tucker Counterfactual, With Light Left On There is a version of me who leaves the house cleanly keys in hand no inventory the sink empty counters bare no small shoes by the door the body is uninterrupted it…
Browsing: MER Online
Pichchenda Bao MOTHER TONGUE My mother once told me, “When you were born, they kept calling you black. So I named you Diamond.” What I took away was not how precious I am, but how much she wanted…
Sleep When the Baby Sleeps and Other Nonsensical Writing Advice by Pichchenda Bao A renowned poet once gently suggested to me that I would never find the perfect conditions to write so I shouldn’t let that hold me back.…
Jimmy’s Revival –from a work-in-progress by Lyndsey Ellis Sugar called the day after my trial visit with Jimmy at the Revival Complex. As usual, she wore her granny hat for the first half hour, buttering me with…
The Far Side of the Moon is Another Form of Absence –after Luisa A. Igloria by Lorraine Rice Mostly I return the cold shoulder with a coiled tongue of distrust. I want to believe without…
In the Beginning by Z.M. Spalter Sleep when the baby sleeps, lay him on his back, no, lay her on her belly, but only if you are in the same room. Read books about sleep, as if you haven’t…
The Language of Our Mothering -For Kai by Avery Irons Before you were born, a small, but solid enough, part of me feared that blood was the only ingress. And then I held you, and with blue-gray eyes, so…
Sailing With Lucille by J.E. Sills ++++++”may the tide ++++++that is entering even now ++++++the lip of our understanding ++++++carry you out ++++++beyond the face of fear” ++++++Blessing the Boats ++++++– Lucille Clifton (1937-2010) This poem you learn has…
Good Girl by Gail Upchurch Sweet messages written on the bottoms of my brown paper bag lunches. Crocheted, granny square blankets. A shared strawberry malt at Woolworth’s. In the eighteen years that I’ve been a mother, I have consciously…
Dwight –from a work in progress by Jacinda Townsend He’d heard his mother tell the story until it was legend. Her years on the North Carolina coast, attending college as an afterthought, an avocation secondary to her true purpose,…