MER VOX Quarterly – Fall 2020 Welcome to MER VOX, Fall Edition! Range of Motherhood is a literary folio curated by J.L. Scott amplifying diverse mother’s voices. We have a Labor Day poem by Margo Berdeshevsky, Rage Hezekiah’s inspiring essay…
Range of Motherhood An MER VOX folio curated by J.L. Scott The experience of motherhood is so wide and varied that there is no way that a single volume of anything could hope to represent it all. The…
Naomi J. Williams No Doors When they had been stuck indoors for a very long time, the children asked if they could play outside, just for a little while, and the mother relented because she wanted to be alone for…
Sophie Rhem Am I A Mother I Am 19 days. 456 hours. 27,360 minutes. 1,641,600 seconds. None of them are simple numbers, easily divisible and sorted into categories. They are complex. Confusing. Difficult for my muddled brain to make…
Pooja Ugrani Thud! A familiar sound drops like a boulder in my belly a second before I open the door. The skull that hit the floor, now bobs up to greet me, to my relief. Guilt boils over. I let…
Meghan Trask Smith First Fever The fosterling burning in this bed calls out for her mother in a fever dream, a woman who is not me. Her mother is handing her unicorn earrings when I wake her for Advil.…
Onita Morgan Edwards Clean House I ignored my husband’s wishes by taking in foster children after he died. I wanted to save the world, and while my life wasn’t always rosy, I was obviously in better shape than some…
Eloísa Pérez-Lozano Lucky I stroke the wisps of hair on your head and caress your soft and spoiled skin as you suckle mi seno in our bed to the soundtrack of crickets outside. I think about how safe you…
Janet Garber Baby Love Wet babykisses circle my face, delicious, as in the morning’s almost-rain I walk the track. Through my cottonball ears I hear the swoosh of cars and trucks and a big fire engine chugging its way home.…
Jennifer L. Freed “Have You Locked up the Knives?” In answer to Ms. K, Department of Children and Family Services Staples, thumb tacks, twist ties, tooth picks. The tips of unfolded paperclips. The spirals of wire binding her college-ruled…