Melissa Joplin Higley A Mother’s Lament He knew her as the beginning. A union of bodies divided into another, then replicated exponentially; he grew inside her. Soon, his heartbeat patterned hers. He came to know her murmurs and sighs, shortened and breathy. He heard small voices: outside—a brother, a sister—chanting bits of nursery rhymes, cupping small hands over small songs, welcoming the mystery in her belly. * She sang to him, too, while she washed dishes, her belly pressing against the edge of the sink more each day. She dipped her hands again and again into iridescence. She knew…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Ann Farley Bare Legs on Warm Wood A Visit to Stony Brook Wildlife Sanctuary Ann Farley, poet and caregiver who lives in Beaverton, OR, is happiest outside, preferably at the beach.
Jennifer Schomburg Kanke The House of Never Enough 1. Architect I am a brick wall of want she knows she’s not a wrecking ball strong enough to take me down She is the one that built me and in her building no longer recognizes the floor plan or the mortar. 2. Hand-Me-Downs Fuck those brown corduroy slacks that went out of style before the knees wore out, I will not wear them on picture day or any other. I will not listen to their sushing as I walk or their straining as I sit. I refuse their reminder that…
Tezozomoc Tezozomoc is a Los Angeles Chicano Poet and 2009 Oscar Nominated Activist and has been published by Floricanto Press, Gashes!: Poems and Pain from the halls of injustice, a collection of poetry. He has also been published in the following journals: The Oddball Magazine, Spitpoetzine, and The Silver Stork.
Jane Yolen Mysteries Birth is not mysterious to the mother whose body is cradle and cafe. Who listens for breath, feels a whale swimming in the sea of her. She sends hand signals against her skin, is rewarded with a kick. She is the first house, the first home, both comfort and comforter. So why this mystery about writing something down? Just open your mind Take a gulp of air, bear down hard, and push. Jane Yolen has published over 383 books, with 400 in sight! She has received 6 honorary doctorates for her body of work from six New…
Brad Shurmantine The Big Yard Stunned, still moving in a sick green haze my widowed mom stared at a sea of blueprints and chose the one with the biggest yard, a field big enough to swallow up our pain and terror—a place to land. But her three boys saw a baseball field, saw home plate and stepped off the bases. That hedge was the end zone (poor bushes, whittled away by goal line stands). Season after season after season side yard touch football quick slants toward Grandview Road pinpoint passes waited or going long sailing over the boxwoods…
Jendi Reiter Broken Family Couch I miss the neighbors who used to jump shirtless on the trampoline in the bramble woods they didn’t own. October, early, the sun is mooning through the fog, translucent disk, surprise of perfect geometry. Her boyish hair and rippling brown ribs, his black beard and plié legs an Edward Gorey sketch. Pre-dawn wires smoked, sparked — emptied of renters, the house burst out its curbside trash of wicker and mirrors. A mother, a husband, her children, their father, a baby. Their rose-colored couch sinks into the unweeded lawn. Everyone pretends someone else will take…
Nicola Waldron (29205) there was a woman who lived in a house of wax when she came home from teaching children to speak who had never before spoken she would feel the walls of the house the doorknob to check for signs of melting would push the door reach gingerly fingers inside feeling for her own imprint she liked to bring in sounds sometimes flimsy/hard (undone) there were no marks the children inside the waxen house her own offspring did not speak she never taught them their silence melted down around the arms of the couch sides of the…
Libby Maxey Contrafactum “Every house has its particular orchestra.” —Sylvia Townsend Warner in the woods, a bear bell’s chunnering drone the flickers’ enfilade in the garden, a chiming gamelan wind wash in the leaves inside, outside’s company now that May is almost June every bird singing singing into dusk frogs roaring high chorus our small dialogues cadence every day a common tune to which we set new words Libby Maxey is a senior editor with Literary Mama. She has reviewed poetry for Mom Egg Review and Solstice, and her own poems have appeared in Crannóg, Emrys, Pinyon, Pirene’s Fountain…
Veronica Kornberg A Daughter Leaves Home You’re moving clear across the country, your first real job, with no idea even how to sew on a button. Last of the packing done, and you hold out a black wool jacket, the one we found together in the designer section at Goodwill. You make those pretty-please eyes and my heart pricks—what else have I neglected to teach you? But with only a few minutes before you leave for the airport, it’s not the moment to say If a powerful older man shows an intense personal interest… If the subway entrance lights are…