Golda Solomon She Did the Best She Could Friday nights at dusk she lit the Sabbath candles. Her ritual: hold a lit wooden match to the bottom of each tapered candle, melting the wax so the candle stood on its own in the silver…
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Catharine Clark-Sayles Yahrzeit Moon Full moon at 3 AM, bright and round, ducking through fast-moving cloud, wind wuthers through the chimney, moans across the downspouts, rattles trees, the house a creaky ship in storm-frothed seas, across the valley – scattered…
Jennifer Dickinson No One’s Darling Etta puts on her pink dress with the slit up the skirt. Lipstick. Powder. Mascara. Rhinestone earrings. Her fur coat. If she’s going to have an audience, she has to look her best. The blonde…
Tsaurah Litzky The Sweet Potato Plant When I was little my mother and I lived with my father’s parents in their house in Brownsville, Brooklyn. My mother told me my father was away in France fighting in a big war…
Mother is Speaking: An MER VOX folio Curated by Keisha-Gaye Anderson Mother is speaking. She is the quiet voice that speaks the loudest, especially when we are out of balance. From state violence to a global health crisis, the call for…
Awotunde Judyie Al-Bilali Miracle Again we split open and don’t die life crowns from within every woman every where Awotunde Judyie Al-Bilali is an actor, director, playwright, and producer. She has worked off-Broadway and in…
Barbara Conrad Beauty Queen Her shoes are bolted to the linoleum floor. Practical flats, black and rubber-soled. In a top drawer next to the sink, fistfuls of used tin foil — no waste, no wishes. Before she swapped her…
Breena Clarke Mama Ascended I have communicated with those who would know. Mama and Papa and Harold and Alice were welcomed in the afterlife, following their harrowing deaths. Their souls were luminous. They said that Mama ascended in the…
C. Jean Blain The Road Called Home She knows this life is round because she keeps coming back. First born of the last born. The only daughter of the only son. She is always brown and braided. Ten toes…
Dayna Patterson God the Mother Speaks of Coprophagia with a line from Maxine Kumin A star implodes and feeds a nursery of new lights. My design. A latrine fly, hungry, presses spongy mouthparts to brown liquid, also mine. There’s…