Jennifer Case Things People Tell Me When I Write About Motherhood From an esteemed essayist I have long admired: “Yes, we need to talk more about what women gave up when they left the home.” In a cream envelope,…
Derek Davidson Medium Start with blue, a cadmium wash spilling through Mom’s studio window, covering drafting table, stool, bookshelves, blue a patina before Mom registers the incoming dark and turns on the light. Then a click of the lamp…
Amy Gallo Ryan Water’s Edge Fifteen fingers worm through mine, burrowing and squirming as they pull hard for leverage. My kids and I are always touching, it seems, but today the physicality has a kind of kinetic fervor. The…
Melissa Mowry Cinderella & I Before I hit the uphill climb of my long, winding driveway, I take a steadying breath and lock eyes with myself in the rearview mirror. Back to reality. My ascent is slow, plodding. As…
Tamara J. Madison Awkward Agency/Salient Survival Me: “Good morning, I am traveling to Auburn, New York. I will be reading poems from our family tree in Ms. Harriet Tubman’s church at 5:00 pm this evening in a celebration called…
Leah Richards Ghost, Mother I went back to the mountains of my childhood because I thought Wichita, with its feral boars and hoof trails cut through whispering prairie, might quiet her. The girl I once was, barefoot on creek…
Geula Geurts Moon Child “I’m like a moon,” my toddler says. He’s sitting on the toilet, proudly working his tummy. He is newly potty trained, his foray into big boyhood. Oh no, I think, not another in-house poet. “How…
Maggie Cramer and Emily Cramer So(ma)tic Poetry Exercises after CA Conrad This is best with bare feet. Even better naked. Walk from one end of your home to another. It doesn’t matter if the children are awake or asleep.…
Brittany Ackerman Big Splashes, So Big I dream that beetles have infested our home. The meaning of beetles in dreams varies, but some say that dreams about insects in general can indicate a need to be free from anxiety…
Ree Pashley Our weapon is a Needle A guide to giving emergency injections The moment might erupt without fissures or symptomatic tremors: she is normal, he is happy, and then—crisis. Often, a potentially life-threatening crisis. One requiring an emergency…
Kara Melissa Cerebral Palsy Took All the Words from My Son “If you listen you can hear me. My mouth is open, and I am singing.” -“Fathers and Sons” from Mortal Remains by Patrick Lane I imagine my son.…
Shasta Kearns Moore What I know and what I don’t You’re looking at me like I don’t know. And you’re right, hospital staffer: I don’t. I don’t know what all your acronyms mean. I don’t know the difference between…