Jane Yolen Bambi Haiku An old book opens. A fawn loses his mother. Yes, there will be tears. A child ‘s first movie. My age? I was only four. The skunk was no help. I kept on screaming: “Bad…
Catherine Gigante-Brown Poem to My Younger Self Dear Cat, You couldn’t possibly imagine how it would turn out. Sometimes you wished you would die from the pain of not belonging, of not being like anyone else. But this uniqueness,…
H.E. Fisher When My Child Tells Me He is Her I give her the dress that no longer fits, take the waist in like breath— a fabric my hands wove, dye blue and pink baby blankets the colors of…
Shalewa Mackall Deeply Resourced My great-grandmother hugged herself and rocked by the door whenever I headed out. How many years did the sound of her muttering wash over before I heard softly: cuídate, cuídate bien mija”? she who wore…
Lynne McEniry Covid dreaming I thought I was done being pregnant kids in their 30s no period for the past two years but these Covid dreams are so real they repeat themselves so real that my uterus is still…
Theta Pavis The Shell and The Bone Waiting for the x-ray I lay still on the table. My little body patient and wondering what the doctor will see when she looks at my bones, stolen too early of their…
Cheryl J. Fish I Never Had A Daughter I never had a daughter who play-acted feelings she could not articulate, a busted doll in hand. Who wrote poems and scored goals. Who asked, “mother, who was your first love?…
Kathy Engel For that hour it’s the icefloes I can’t stop thinking about, cascade of endless blue, lonely cold & faces of grieving mothers I’ll always see, year after year, country after country – tonight I pray especially for…
Annis Cassells Two Daughters, Twice Blessed for Amina and Asila When your daughter reads your poem aloud on New Year’s Day And it’s the first time you’ve heard it read by someone else A tenderness blooms, expands throughout your…
Golda Solomon golda’s sestina ( after Enid Dames’ Lilith’s Sestina) –2021 Wrong and right for me grey through memory. The men I knew as a baby, Jerome I called Romeo. Myself nine years younger than Stanley my brother. There’s…
Carol Dorf A blessing on your head . . . As an old mother, I better get started with this. Sometimes I say, ok I managed to live until you are 25, could be worse. I really can’t promise…
Margo Berdeshevsky SHE WASN’T QUITE MY MOTHER…BUT… I She wasn’t quite my mother. My elder “mother figure” friend would have been 110 years young this May 10. These dark-lit, unlit days we have been led by those who have…