Donna Katzin For Ruth Bader Ginsberg At 87, she dies in childbirth on Erev Rosh Hashanah, as the new year struggles to be born. Who will nurture it now? We mourn the wisp of woman who exhausted all her matter,…
Hilary King In an Almost Empty Room with Ellen Bryant Voigt Last-minute funding blows the poet into town. Little notice, late notice, the difficult location at the commuter college downtown leave most of the hard blue chairs out of work.…
Tsaurah Litzky Alba for my Grandmother You were cunning, strong, fierce as a she-bear with cubs, no less then death could stop your bustling, your clatter, your burrowing among all your pots for that one small pan to fry me…
Anne Elezabeth Pluto Mother to Remember For MKS Your yahrzeit will arrive on the 20th of Av, 5780 Dog day August – 8th month – 10th day the Magus twirling the yikzor flame into silver tracks I haven’t been…
Golda Solomon my mother figure is jazz anna zack gave me life independence firecrackers announce my arrival round midnight feedings from infant to woman the blues hummed loud ‘til teats of notes chord changes/ jazz woke by a legend…
Lisa C. Taylor Heirlooms for Annie She darkened windows to halt vertigo, brewed broth from chicken necks for migraines, buried sickness on a plate twenty-two steps from the back door. I imagined her hairnet spun from spider webs. Dust motes…
Colette Tennant Tidepools Studying the insistent moon, tidepools are sturdy mothers. They hold parabolas of changing water, cover gray sculpins in the folds of their shadowed skirts, lift stars the color of sunsets toward the only light they will ever…
Welcome to the June 2021 MER VOX: Ekphrastic Challenge & Other Poems For this VOX, we’ve curated a folio of poems that engage with or echo Keisha-Gaye Anderson’s evocative work of art titled “Escape.” We loved Anderson’s use of colors…
Gabby Gilliam Protogenoi The leaking nipple of a faceless mother speckled like Cerillos turquoise undulates through a polished universe all ass and hip and dripping milk, she turns her back on the expanse of space watches Prometheus’ gift raze…
Martina McGowan Earth Mother —After Pat McCade Mother to all Transforming stardust into life With the amniotic fluid That runs through my veins I am the holy sky walker Holy surface walker Life-bearer Life-bringer Hope for the living And…
Sarah Dickenson Snyder It May Be Up to Us This bruised earth so full of rockets and fire may need a woman’s touch, our slow-moving ripples, our functional nipples, the engine of braided bigness as the glue of healing.…
Dawn Terpstra [Re]Creation Myth with Bombs –after Keisha-Gaye Anderson Dawn Terpstra lives in Iowa where she leads a communications team. Her poetry appears in Main Street Rag, Briar Cliff Review, Citron Review, San Pedro River Review, and…