The Dreaming by Ruth Thompson
“The Dreaming” by Ruth Thompson The princess Briar Rose, her mother the Queen, and all the court fall into sleep with the pricking of a finger. The crone, the dark fairy, also sleeps. They dream. 1. The Queen’s Dream When her daughter was born the queen vanished. Now she stands in her husband’s hall. She opens her mouth and flames pour out. All the court burns; the king goes up like kindling. Ah, I’m a...
The Daughter Walk by Sheila Bender
“The Daughter Walk” by Sheila Bender For Kathryne Kent We live on a circle, our mothers’ houses just to the west of our own. We carry casseroles to them, newspapers, print outs of family email, prunes to stew, brooms to sweep out the corners. Our feet crunch over their crushed gravel driveways as the sun rises behind us, sets in front of our eyes. ____________________ Share your response to this...
Honey by Margaret Chula
“Honey” by Margaret Chula I dream that I visit Mother in the last days of her life as she lies in bed naked, comfortable being naked as she never was when she was alive, her back tan and supple like Katherine Hepburn’s in The Philadelphia Story and I’m naked too as we compare bellies—how our fat is below our belly buttons, not above like a shelf that can fold over things and hold them fast, and she looks down...
Poem for My Mother by Mary Elise Bailey
“Poem for My Mother” by Mary Elise Bailey There’ll be no cups of coffee here, no rituals, no book-talk—this time, even our voices will be new. There’ll be no mother-daughter, here, where memory has slipped away and hidden, like a stubborn child we won’t follow: let her go. Just give us a goldfinch, somewhere not too distant, a bright shade of blue, our feet together, walking a path whose details we won’t...
Tissue by Berwyn Moore
“Tissue” by Berwyn Moore for my mother, Connie Moore As though to convince us she’s still game, my mother pulls from her coat pocket a lemon, blue with mold, and tosses it, a perfect serve, to the ceiling. Her eyes glimmer, for just a moment, and she’s back on the court, thirty-love, muscles poised to swing, but the lemon thuds to the...
Windy by Annita Sawyer
“Windy” by Annita Sawyer I was born at Winter Solstice on a mountaintop. I came out howling with the wind. “Here’s Windy,” the shout went up, while my dear Mama cried. Old Mrs. Dooley cleaned me off with freezing handfuls of white flakes. My blood showed scarlet on the snow. Once they’d bit and tied the cord, Mama herself held an icy ball against the knot. All the sheepskins, wool coats, down quilts they...
Breathing Room by Holly Norton
“Breathing Room” by Holly Norton What must it have been like to wake up breathless Not with anticipation With lack of oxygen The panic sets in You call 911 Gasp for breath and wait for them to come. Medics arrive Place a mask on your face Take you away without a change of clothes No siren, only the sound of wheels on the road Take you to a place where you know you will have to do...
Boy Child by Gerda Govine Ituarte
“Boy Child” by Gerda Govine Ituarte Boy child what could I have done differently Boy child where does the blame live Boy child quiet Boy child did not bother anyone Boy child shy Boy child withdrew at fourteen Boy child scared to talk on phone Boy child wanted to be a neuroscientist Boy child isolated Boy child attended college Boy child never hurt anyone Boy child communicated by email Boy child visits home...
Identity by Gerda Govine Ituarte
“Identity” by Gerda Govine Ituarte What do you call a woman who is married? wife What do you call a woman whose husband died?...
A New Theology by Sheila Bender
“A New Theology” by Sheila Bender For Seth Bender, 1975-2000 Who has no likeness of a body and has no body is my son, now five months dead but in my dreams, my dreams he brings the peace in gardens. And I see him in his smile and he is hardy in the rolled up sleeves of his new shirt, well-fed when he has no likeness of a body and has no body. I see him next to me in conversation at a party and I believe that...
On the Eve of a Daughter’s Fortieth Birthday by Laurie Klein
“On the Eve of a Daughter’s Fortieth Birthday” by Laurie Klein Little fist of a plum on the chipped yellow plate, your heft—mottled violet, tinge of blue—defines awkward: Smooth skin girdles the bloom of pulp. Youth is a membrane, poised to tear, spill seed. Little plum, sealed tight, were you a door hinged to my fieldstone wall, where would I open? ____________________ Share your response to this...
Orbit without Gravity by Page Lambert
“Orbit without Gravity” by Page Lambert Once, daughter, in keeping with the turning of the moon—nine times we felt it turn during those months when we shared blood and breath, when the iron-rich beef I ate became the flesh that filled the hollows of your soft bones, before the nurse cut the cord and we began that long journey away from each other, once, daughter you needed me. Now, twenty-one years later, the...
There’s a Tornado in My Mind by Ann L. Carter
“There’s a Tornado in My Mind” by Ann L. Carter It comes and goes but lately it’s been lingering. Sometimes it wrecks the house, leaving us to stand amidst the piles, and how do I find the energy to put everything back together? Sometimes it takes my daughters, with me a shell of memories, desperate to find their photographs. Sometimes I alone am swept away, doubting that those remaining can ever find...
Unwinding by Anita Barnard
“Unwinding” by Anita Barnard Broad and capable, still brown from the long gone summer, they carry you through the joyous whys and whats of your days. Had destiny given us a different setting, my intrepid daughter, you would not be running now through our overgrown garden. The binding woman would come. I would wrap my arms around your fragile limbs, stiffen against your pain as feet were folded, bound, broken....
Premonition by Faith Holsaert
“Premonition” by Faith Holsaert When I return, my car motor labors up the rise. Our shingled house hunkers into the green woods, the blue and white sky snapping like bed sheets on a line. I am putting the car in gear and setting the brake, gathering purse, books, and a bag of groceries from the IGA. The brown dog leaps barking off the porch, and the shepherd mix hurries toward me, ready to put his body...
Spear Maiden to Persephone by Geri Lipschultz
“Spear Maiden to Persephone” by Geri Lipschultz All superheroes are violent, so do not marry one, but all who are not superheroes are also violent. A discovery made by one of the female explorers. Empty pages, my life has been that for a while. I’ve stepped into someone else’s book. I’ve skated on their pages. I’ve relinquished my religion and my height. I’ve given up my hair for a good cause. They must...
The Bones of His Face by Jan Lewbin
“The Bones of His Face” by Jan Lewbin I invited My son Glorious and brilliant Yet so adrift separate distant From me In that painful precarious place Between boy and man To approach And come close He laid his head in my lap Rested his shoulders on my thighs And nestled his lean body Along the length of mine So that I could soothe The taut skin between his brows Circle my finger tips At his temples And stroke...
Outside Modern Myths: Waiting in the Car While the Teens Battle on Game Night by Rebecca Olander
“Outside Modern Myths: Waiting in the Car While the Teens Battle on Game Night” by Rebecca Olander My son and his geek friends are beautiful, with their Magic cards and D10 dice, their plastic-sheathed comic books and revelry in their own stink in the backwoods of gaming stores, huddled around tables like Tolkien’s fellowship round a fire. Sometimes, they role-play in forests, becoming weekend healers, totem...
The Disappointed Women by Celeste Helene Schantz
“The Disappointed Women” by Celeste Helene Schantz These are the tssking women; the women who glance sideways at my son. These are whispering women, who talk behind their hands; who wait for the bus with their precious brats, little rats with normal brains, mimicking my boy as he talks to the wind, to the robins; speaks in signs with small fingers flying fast as hummingbird wings. He tries to join their...
At Precisely the Corner by Faith Holsaert
“At Precisely the Corner” by Faith Holsaert at precisely the corner a woman with wild eyes as you are turning a kind of wildness as you are turning turn wall-eyed terror another whom you knew and now, look and now, not whom you thought and look again and you will see another she is walking close to the wall no room for a shadow a dog follows a feist dog who fits inside her shadow you know these dogs know them...
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Witness Nov 29, 2024
