An Imperfect Mother by Joan Leotta One of my early memories is marveling over a statue of Mary, the Mother of Jesus in the corner of my first-grade classroom. The nuns said Mary was the perfect Mother. I learned…
Point-Counterpoint by Linda Murphy Marshall Flip sides of the same coin. Yin and yang. Point, counterpoint. Sisters. Besides their diminutive frames, their oversized intellects, having mothered four children each, they had little in common. Picture my mother. Movie star…
May Day by Heather Haldeman “Hurray! Hurray! It’s the 1st of May. Outdoor sex starts today!” “Mom!” “I know,” she laughed. “You wanted the mother with the bun in the back, the Peter Pan collar and the cross around…
Martina Green McGowan Crafting Beyond the Half-Century Mark Time and Age Time and age come with a certain sense of freedom. Freedom of thought, more risk-taking, a different perspective gained from a long view of life, its attendant…
Wendy Brown-Báez Weathering The Storm In the 1980s, I was part of a group that lived off-grid in the countryside of eastern Oregon. We shared a dilapidated barn, a cabin and a main building on five acres at…
Erin McGuff-Pennington She Knew Nowadays all it takes is Call the Midwife, one glass of wine, and I’m an overflowing tub of emotions, soupy water sloshing over the sides. I doubt there’s an end to it—other than the very end—but…
Aimee Pozorski It’s Nothing You Did A woman is most vulnerable flat on her back, knees to her chest, panties dropped to the floor. Darkness surrounds her as the room’s shadows whisper. A wand scans the woman suspicious…
Elaine Terranova Tantrum Things are very hard in the world of a three-year-old. So much you are born not understanding. You can play in the street but only until supper. You get a spanking for the interesting white…
Bruce Moody The Embrace Its wings, its ribs, shoulders, its skin have a mind that desires — as the fires of spring desire — to be held, close, firm, firmly by hands. Hold me, hold me the…
Vivian Montgomery Her Study, Her Story My mother kept the door to her study open at all times. This is how we knew her work was meant to be interrupted, a sideline to us, a thing she did when there…
Golda Solomon She Did the Best She Could Friday nights at dusk she lit the Sabbath candles. Her ritual: hold a lit wooden match to the bottom of each tapered candle, melting the wax so the candle stood on its own in the silver…
Tsaurah Litzky The Sweet Potato Plant When I was little my mother and I lived with my father’s parents in their house in Brownsville, Brooklyn. My mother told me my father was away in France fighting in a big war…