Lisa Ludden Perry Blue Hours, the NICU -After and grateful for “Blue Hour” by Carolyn Forché Time is a clutching longing. Breathing deep into my hands like breath on a cold day, I saw something close to breath assembled,…
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Jasmine Soria Sears Personalized It is strange to be condescended to By someone smaller and younger Smiling up at your concerns Repeating the standard protocols As though your history of quick births And painless labors And late-breaking waters Gives…
Leonore Wilson Their Genesis Fog swaddles the pastures, a white film, slub silk like the creamy net vernix that once covered my sons as I cover them now, mature men who sleep with their loves in front of the…
Laure-Anne Bosselaar FOR MY SON on his 30th birthday I sit against the scarred trunk of an oak. The sun barely winnows through its branches. Beyond a lit spot, small as a new-born’s fist, a twig quivers, then arcs…
Heather Haldeman Pick up the Phone! “There you are!” Mom would say, taking a slurp of her instant coffee. It would be 8:00 am, the usual time for her morning call. I’d picture her in bed, the long powder…
Tina Cane GOOD MOM For years I drove back and forth through traffic with a carload of children short distances like sprints during which I would curse from behind the wheel for the sheer amount of hours and my…
Katie Manning The Ghost in My Knees I never met my great grandmother, but she lives in my knees, the way they freeze even on the warmest days, just like hers used to do. She lives in my…
Folio Editors Cindy Veach and Anna V.Q. Ross To mother is to live with the constant oscillation between noise (kids, advice, to dos, societal expectations) and silence (naptime, playdates, custody arrangements, estrangement, empty nest). The poems in this folio…
Rachel Beachy All the Small Things “It is no surprise that danger and suffering surround us. What astonishes is the singing.” – Jack Gilbert In the long night, the night spent longing for rest – when rest is…
Jessica Bozek Lost Constellation: Noctua Without drugs I lack the imagination it takes to look up and see an animal in a scattering of stars. Rotate the shapes and a different bird emerges: solitaire, thrush, mockingbird, owl. Pictures…