Welcome to the June 2021 MER VOX: Ekphrastic Challenge & Other Poems For this VOX, we’ve curated a folio of poems that engage with or echo Keisha-Gaye Anderson’s evocative work of art titled “Escape.” We loved Anderson’s use of colors…
Gabby Gilliam Protogenoi The leaking nipple of a faceless mother speckled like Cerillos turquoise undulates through a polished universe all ass and hip and dripping milk, she turns her back on the expanse of space watches Prometheus’ gift raze…
Martina McGowan Earth Mother —After Pat McCade Mother to all Transforming stardust into life With the amniotic fluid That runs through my veins I am the holy sky walker Holy surface walker Life-bearer Life-bringer Hope for the living And…
Sarah Dickenson Snyder It May Be Up to Us This bruised earth so full of rockets and fire may need a woman’s touch, our slow-moving ripples, our functional nipples, the engine of braided bigness as the glue of healing.…
Dawn Terpstra [Re]Creation Myth with Bombs –after Keisha-Gaye Anderson Dawn Terpstra lives in Iowa where she leads a communications team. Her poetry appears in Main Street Rag, Briar Cliff Review, Citron Review, San Pedro River Review, and…
Jericho Hocket Night Shift (the Wheel of Fortune tarot) –for my mother Janice, upon her retirement You have remained awake through seven thousand midnights blessing life instead of fearing fatigue at your heels: a juvenile, striped yellow to hide…
Helen Bournas-Ney Because Helen Bournas-Ney was born in Ikaria, Greece, and grew up in New York City. While studying Comparative Literature at NYU, she received the Anaïs…
Sonya Schneider May I A barn swallow builds her nest nearby she loops the sky when we open the door and waits for us to close it before returning to her job of keeping eggs warm II Mom didn’t…
Martha Silano With Headphones Blaring, I Devotional Warrior by the sea, in the grass that is also lichens and mosses, tiny flowers I think called blue-eyed Mary, the boats back and forth, and the wakes, and the waking of…
Tim Tomlinson Teaching My Mother to Zoom 1 Why would I want to video? I don’t want to video. Because I don’t, that’s why. I don’t want anybody looking at me in the morning. Or in the afternoon, too, smartass.…