Join us for the February Flash Challenge! #febflash is a chance for writers to establish or nurture a daily writing practice by focusing on short, flash pieces throughout this, the shortest month. We will be featuring daily tips, optional writing…
E.J. Antonio Matriarch someone sang for me from behind her teeth the sound of blood’s rush called me from myself into myself a body an earth song of love & bitterness someone sang for me deep in Virginia pines…
Jerrice J. Baptiste The Solution Her belly grew like a basketball not filled with air but with water where a wonderful creature was protected inside a hard like shell. She wanted a baby boy genius. She followed her own…
Lao Rubert Asking Your Permission for Maryam, born Feb 5, 2020 You’ve arrived. Ears, elbows, fingers precisely in place, controlling your world from a tiny perch. The news is blaring as your eyes flicker open bringing greetings from…
Sarah Dickenson Snyder Finding You Imagine that we could pick our mothers that there was a parade of them walking by and we stand behind some gentle barrier to watch and select from the mothers who carry spools…
Kelli Stevens Kane Moon Rocks (Mom, 1969) Oh! (wistfully) The moon rocks. Okay your dad was out of town. And while we were watching them come out of the rocket and jump down to the moon [on TV]…
Margaret D. Stetz “Whistler’s Mother” How strange how wrong a title Arrangement in Grey and Black for what begins in reddest flows of blood and grows like bars of color layered on a rainbow the mother-child relationship encompassing…
Hilde Weisert Belly Is this what you think of when dying? The white tunnel not to Heaven but where you came from, a belly, your source. The hands guiding you, your mother’s hands, fussing to get you ready…
Lisa Briana Williams The Steamroller Tries to Remain Light It is too easy to say everything we were told about motherhood is a lie. More true to say I absorbed nothing but goodness until it came for me—that…
Karren LaLonde Alenier Granddaughter Clara Spera explores Bubbie Ruth’s big closet my mom Jane Ginsburg was never hamstrung by her mom’s inattention no rather she and her brother were often smothered it’s not as if Bubbie caused collapsed lungs…