Kyle Potvin The Clock Turns Back 1965 Birth mother, my first mother. Small, startled breaths. How did you learn you were pregnant? * In the cruel November air, did you pray, hand on womb, dread pounding your unmarried…
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Flame Nebula, Bright Nova by Sherre Vernon Author’s Note I did not know that Flame Nebula would shine so brightly until it was nearly finished. I could only tell you that I had lived much of my life under…
Jane Muschenetz Lviv, Ukraine Long before Reuters and BBC reporters signed off from it, Lviv, Ukraine was my hometown, I knew it by another name—Lvov, Ukrainian Republic, USSR is, like anyone’s childhood, I suppose, a dot on the map…
Karolina Zapal My Future Daughter During Adolescence My mother is crazy She passes out copies of her favorite poetry to us every morning with toast. She says I am just like her We both stick our noses in our…
Welcome to the March 2022 MER Online Folio: Release In her poem, “Summer Arthritis Lessons,” Chrissy Martin writes, “We speak in this language of trinkets and remedies / that say I know what causes you pain.” The poems in the…
Marie-Célie Agnant from Balafres translated from the French by Danielle Legros Georges EUMÉNIDES My body holds the habits of delirious torrents of rumblings of earth in rebellious jolts Revolt in the body fastened since the first dawn humanity’s tongues…
Jessica Cuello These epistolary poems are written in the voice of Mary Shelley as she addresses her dead mother, the writer Mary Wollstonecraft. Wollstonecraft died 10 days after giving birth. Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin, raised Mary with unusual strictness…
N.F. Kimball “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” THE BURIAL I had a dream once, of my life standing still. I saw behind closed eyes the Earth forgiving me, the parts of my being…
Chrissy Martin SUMMER ARTHRITIS LESSONS My mother slips a careful sock onto my feet, and even though I am 27 and perfectly capable of dressing myself, I let her. They are excessively thick and knit for July heat,…
Chloe Martinez SEASCAPE “Juego de manos (Hand Play), Juchitán, Oaxaca” [Graciela Iturbide, photograph, 1988; Philadelphia Museum of Art] …