Motherhood and the Body a literary folio There are myriad areas in which motherhood intersects, is contingent on, is affected by, the body–our own, and our loved ones’. Our writers of prose and poetry explore becoming a mother–or not,…
Kathy Anne Cowie My Body Politic When I married at 34, I thought the doctor was joking, describing me as a woman of “advanced maternal age.” My husband and I eagerly expected at any moment to be expecting. We…
Paula Da Ponte The Woman Who Fed Everyone People often ask where my complicated relationship with food began. They assume it started with a stubborn child refusing vegetables or turning away from unfamiliar meals. The truth is far more…
Robbie Gamble Hospice Pet Therapy –for my mother, Anne Conant Gamble, 1932 – 2026 It had been a tiring morning, with two well-meaning visitors, and the energy seeped from her body like oxygen from a faulty tank. So, when…
Heather Haldeman Facing The Music “Given that you were overweight as an adolescent, what do you think about childhood obesity today?” A question I wasn’t expecting hit a nerve when I was doing a reading for my memoir, Kids…
Joanna Wolfarth Birth of the Ouroboros Bare skin is fusing with the lime pleather chair, which I’ve turned to face the window. I watch the sky turn orange then pink before it settles into the deep sapphire of late…
Nancy Huggett Breathing Lessons –(after my daughter’s stroke) Learning how to breathe — in / out — from the trees. In the park we walk past the bins and you dare me to inhale their fetid scent — in…
Rachael Inciarte Olfactory I lost my sense of smell and then things got weird. I didn’t realize before how much my experience of the world was filtered through my olfactory medium. But, on the other side of anosmia, I…
Kat Zagaria She struggles to sleep. The day adds up in an exhausting tally, but she does not realize that sleep can bring relief. She understands that sometime after consciousness slips, she is left alone, released from a parental…
Gracie Johnston There’s a Claw on my Shoulder I feel a tenderness. It bubbles up inside my chest. My organs and my muscles and my bones rearrange to make space for it. The movement grinds and aches but requires…
Sleep When the Baby Sleeps and Other Nonsensical Writing Advice by Pichchenda Bao A renowned poet once gently suggested to me that I would never find the perfect conditions to write so I shouldn’t let that hold me back.…
In the Beginning by Z.M. Spalter Sleep when the baby sleeps, lay him on his back, no, lay her on her belly, but only if you are in the same room. Read books about sleep, as if you haven’t…