Abby E. Murray Heirloom I’m driving while talking to my eight-year-old about how even good people can be jerks sometimes and there’s a pause then she asks from her booster seat in the back but how come you’ve never…
Browsing: Poetry
Poetry Prompts by Anne Graue Anne Graue’s April Poem-a-Day Challenge Yes, it’s National Poetry Month again, and poets everywhere are thinking about writing a poem a day to celebrate while others are compiling lists of prompts to share with those…
Sherine Gilmour Tired Parent Wanting Poem I want to be in a hot tub filled with macaroni and cheese. I want to be sleeping alone in a large bed. I want to be surfing the Internet for new shoes,…
You thought you heard a whale, a wail, a wailing. Assumed a woman’s voice, a stance to view the mess. —Alise Alouisi, “I Am Not Your Mother” The poems in the MOTHERS RESPOND folio refuse to look away from landscapes…
Angelique Zobitz A woman walks into the woods—seeking strength and she finds a metaphor in the woods a brown twig snaps, motes dance dead things give way to new now never—not—husk or shell she’ll stretch so far that she…
Lesley Wheeler Permit for Demolition The front porch collapsed in a slow-clap of bricks. Next morning, a bulldozer coaxed the tin roof down. Hoses settled billows of particles—wood splinters, mold, plaster, clay baked a hundred and thirty years ago.…
Sarah Sassoon Tunnels that Lie Under My House I am mother of boys mother of prayers for everyone to live in a house where mothers sleep at night I know of words that dig deep tunnels disturbing deep dreams…
Amy Ralston Seife Aleppo, February 2023 blanketed by his bedroom walls face down in rubble the cup he newly learned to hold filled with silent dust — his mother trapped in a distant corner when the world lurched and folded …
Jessie Zechnowitz Lim Following My Daughter Upstream Yes, I would like to slip quietly into a lazy river, to float downstream, buoyed by a swan-shaped raft with a beer in one hand. I don’t really care where it takes…
Rachel Neve-Midbar In the Union We never ate the mollusks nor wore away at the sepulcherean seal. We joined forces with the many, arms woven through the crook of our neighbors’, we made our way forward. And where was…