Browsing: MER Online

Tina Kelley I Used to Write Love Poems Remember how in college we tired of workshopping all those “I’ve been to Paris” poems? Then my father died and I wrote dead father poems, never wanted to be that poet,…

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Batnadiv Ha Karmi Colic After Terence Hayes A writing mother traces her tradition to desperate singing rockers, chanting the sound of footfalls. Shh Shh, shh. Sleep sleep sleep. Hush little sweet. Hush baby hush. Hush brain hush. Hush the mind.…

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Mary Fontana Meditation Culminating in a Line From My Son’s Comic Book I suppose I was afraid he wouldn’t read. Wouldn’t be a reader. That we would be strange to each other. When he slept through the night I…

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Tamara J. Madison Awkward Agency/Salient Survival Me: “Good morning, I am traveling to Auburn, New York. I will be reading poems from our family tree in Ms. Harriet Tubman’s church at 5:00 pm this evening in a celebration called…

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Leah Richards Ghost, Mother I went back to the mountains of my childhood because I thought Wichita, with its feral boars and hoof trails cut through whispering prairie, might quiet her. The girl I once was, barefoot on creek…

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Geula Geurts Moon Child “I’m like a moon,” my toddler says. He’s sitting on the toilet, proudly working his tummy. He is newly potty trained, his foray into big boyhood. Oh no, I think, not another in-house poet. “How…

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Brittany Ackerman Big Splashes, So Big I dream that beetles have infested our home.  The meaning of beetles in dreams varies, but some say that dreams about insects in general can indicate a need to be free from anxiety…

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