Cristi Ackerman Wells My Mother “I was adopted when I was two weeks old.” So goes the beginning of my life story. I have always known I was adopted, but I never knew my biological mother. Her existence…
Starr Davis Strange Fruits My grandma keeps a bowl of oranges on her counter. Petite, luscious mandarins. They always look so perfect. Everything in my grandma’s apartment has always been perfect. It took me years to realize it is…
Heather Lanier Origin Story with Porcelain Duck In my hand is a porcelain duck with turquoise eyes that look like they’d bat if only porcelain duck-eyes could move. It stands, the duck, if you put it on my dresser.…
Cynthia Neely A Sturdy Well Built Home For weeks we watch the white-headed woodpecker whittle out a nest in the once-stout beam or our house, the rotting wood irresistible. A nest that might befit a mate – tempting her…
Donna Peizer The Haircut “Lisa,” I want you to get your hair cut,” I said for the umpteenth time using the voice that insists that mother knows best. My 13-year-old looked at me and sighed, worn down by the…
Sally Quon Bad Mom I should have left the night I told him I was pregnant, when he beat me until I thought for sure I would miscarry. But I was young and scared, living in a city where…
Lisa Taylor Epiphany Nature can be both soothing and instructive. I am working from home and using the back porch as my office. It’s peaceful. I can work and still enjoy the antics of local creatures. Birds, anoles, snakes,…
Olivia Cronk excerpt from “Mothering as Archive as Textural Surface” With Visual Art by Anne Zielenski Fleming A Quipu That Remembers Nothing consisted of [Cecilia Vicuña’s] act of thinking about a quipu—the knotted cord method of communication used by…
Jamie Etheridge We are (not) fish tales She can’t breathe and I can’t breathe because we are underwater. Only she has no gills and I have no fins and we are not fish. This is not a fairytale. Not…
Hess Love Crab Cakes Supposedly Hester was out of her mind, however, she was also brilliant. Hester made and sold so many crab cakes that she was able to buy her freedom. Hester was my great, great, great…
Susanna Rich Knock on Wood, Grandmother Mumchy taught me, if anyone says anything good. And not just any wood. Can’t be a door, its jambs, or a windowsill. Knocking on doors or windows (as others might to be let…
Elizabeth Fergason Behindland/August Losing my cousin to her body. Me, in my daddy’s old tee shirt covering freckles and a stick shape. Her, so lush, so comfy cushion. Summer sleeps beneath the stars out at the campground near the…