Sunu P. Chandy Learning to Hold the Candle Solo parenting a nine-year-old during a Buddhist evening peace ceremony, we are asked to walk from the meeting hall to the pond a block away and place our boats with candles…
Wendy Grossman Praise For My Mother praise my mother and her big-boned beauty praise the breath she takes from me every time an old photo resurfaces praise those photos, sparse the same ones over and over praise especially the…
Dorsía Smith Silva Requiem my son asks for a baby brother for Christmas / so easily / like going to the drive-through / to get some ubiquitous made-to-order meal / Big Mac with extra cheese / onions and…
Erica Bodwell Child, Mother This child, who started as autumn leaves blown against the house, paper crane with a secret code folded inside, dream from which I believed I’d awaken, untroubled, to the old landscape—as easily as setting out…
Tamara J. Madison Till Poem for Mamie Till We have buried you so many times, sifted through files and notes, slipped our fingers through cracks and crevices to find some semblance of sense,…
Jen Karetnick Babka “What they lacked in richness they made up for ‘with the delightful swirls,’ and the inclusion of chocolate was a mid-twentieth century American Jewish invention.” https://food52.com/blog/18792-the-babka-you-ve-seen-everywhere-isn-t-really-babka-after-all Matriarchal fertility cake named for grandmothers, it’s more than an…
Raeshell Sweeting On weaning The day after it happened you walked up the steps holding onto the short rail. You told me you were a big girl. You could “do it yourself!” You did not ask can…
Elinor Ann Walker I will hunger “the wind, the wind,/ the heavenly child”—Hansel and Gretel “Don’t confuse hunger with greed; And don’t wait until you are dead.”—Ruth Stone, “Advice” All paths lead toward hunger. Hunger is a snarling wolf,…
Kashiana Singh How to destroy a sunny side up, like an 8-month-old practice what you preach, walk the talk, show vs tell he learned to devour the yolk before he learned to bite into a toast, wonder where he…
Anya Kirshbaum In the Midst of Catastrophe, She Blesses What Falls I’m here to confess the asian pear tree in our yard had a year of unabashed bounty, fruits hanging like succulent yellow baubles, so heavy the crown drooping,…
Merie Kirby The witch I have become I plant cosmos and zinnia, flowers that hold their own crowns in their centers. I plant foxglove, so that at the new moon a fox will come and slip her paws into…
Nicole Greaves Scars On a late Friday night in the sauna, women gather, stripped down to their underthings or just wrapped in a white towel becoming spools. Even though we melt like candles, it’s not as hot as my…