Melissa Fraterrigo Mother-Daughter Osmosis Last week, my daughter Eva and I walked to the neighborhood swimming pool a few blocks from our house. The sun glinted off the water’s surface as Eva and I tossed our towels on lounge…
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Jennifer Harris One Hundred and Forty-One Miles I was walking up 19th Street in Dupont Circle listening to Sinead O’Connor’s You Cause As Much Sorrow on my iPhone. She’s saved under my “Goth Alt” list, which, if you must…
Kresha Warnock Becoming a Mother-in-Law I listen to the baby cry in her room. It’s 7 a.m., I’m up, and I wonder if I should go get my little granddaughter. Her dad, my son, worked late the night before.…
Laura Johanna Braverman FULL MOON AND GALLOWAYS The farmer shows me a hollowing-in by the iliac crest, skin taut from the weight of the calf. ‘Soon –’ she says, ‘Next week is Vollmond.’ She brings out a box: puncher…
Brenda Cárdenas WHAT A MOLCAJETE HOLDS Despite my drawers full of knives and spoons, cutting boards, spatulas, ceramic ramekins, when I blend spices, I must place them in her molcajete, press the three-generation pestle against cloves to shatter…
Aimee Suzara First Ultrasound of a Trickster What did you sound like, that first time? A flutter: the wings of a furious butterfly, thrum of a colibrí. Twice my heart’s speed, yours. A life-force undeniable. A wild new fish…
“We bring you here to see dead things—” A folio of the supernatural in motherhood * As we enter autumn, the veil between the living and the dead things becomes gauzier; time seems to take on a different meaning.…
Diannely Antigua ORCHARD REVISITED for Andrés In the beginning, there was no word. So I called him baby apple, conceived in September. I fell in love with the seed, as if it were my own, so happy I would…
Erin Armstrong THE WEIGHT OF BODIES My grandmother cared and carried the weight of bodies. Her ghost stands in the street to speak of bodies. Her ghost stands in the street to speak to bodies. I dug a hole…
Sara Ries Dziekonski INVISIBLE My son has swallowed the potion that makes him invisible I scan the room say Where’s Teddy? Where’s my gooooobs? When he’s ready to bring himself back he giggles shouts Boo— my mother is invisible…