Karen Skolfield Raven Versus Crow “If a raven got in a fight with a crow, who would win?” my son asks. “Why would a raven fight a crow?” I ask. “It’s a strawberry,” my son says. “They’re fighting over…
Stephanie Bryant Anderson My Sons (on dead fathers, the Celestial mother & other mothers) I. Child #1: diagnosis, extreme intelligence / anxiety / OCD My son 4, said the trees are closer than the moon. And the…
Erika Meitner Interval “I know backwards the grief of life like chance” – Bernadette Mayer o the music, we have to hurry and drive and sit and call and wait and once, we were silent we stood in a darkened…
Sarah Browning In Mind, Two Months “The most spectacular thing in the world is in my mind. That’s where everything is happening.”– Toni Morrison The runny sound of baby poop. The pull on my nipple, the yank. Washing my…
Teri Cross Davis Two Glasses of Milk If I were to leave them two glasses of milk, don’t write about that, write about the napkin- the perfect triangle tucked around the circle of glass, the absorbed condensation. If I…
JP Howard Night stand Mama buried herself in liquor Love kept her locked in that room Secrets are like insides of coffins We hide everything in plain view Everybody knew Mama had a secret lover, Tucked under her night…
Human Trafficking in the United States Am I their mother? They took them from me My captors Tore them from my arms as they emerged from my womb My babies One after the other I cried after every missed period…
The Girl in the Apartment Below As the train whistled past the lonely road, She stood still. The stale neon lights illumined the plastic smile on her lips. Her burdened shoulder drooped. Yet, she waved. She was all but ten.…
Gluttony Moves In to Stay The mother worries and hovers, pecking things. Brings a slimming duvet, toes to nose. Daughter’s eyes skitter, blink Morse code: what did you bring? What is she hungry for? What does she want? Siblings and…
Second November Two years alive without you day into night somehow winds a life. Day into night in rooms where women are dying where Mrs. Richman waits for the scary angel to come, that last doctor who says no, I…
The Mother I kept them close when they were young. The boys could roam as far as the mulberry in Schiozzi’s yard qnd the empty lot by the East River. They’d wrestle in the grass, send spitballs across the dinner…
What Mother Means Clara Lemlich young Ukranian immigrant gave a Yiddish speech I’ve Got Something to Say after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire 20,000 immigrant women all joined to make a union all those women at last night’s Clara Lemlich awards…