Interloper by Berwyn Moore
“Interloper” by Berwyn Moore Like a hand, insomnia covers her mouth. She thinks of chores and spills and bills unsent, of Gertrude’s cough and fourteen weeks of drought. The attic shakes. Her body bristles. The misspent night she wills to light and fuss, to the chaos of breakfast, laundry, kids with gifts of earth between their toes, diversions from the loss of sleep, the jangled nerves, the doubtful worth of...
Remember This by Darlene Taylor
“Remember This” by Darlene Taylor “There’s no certain time to things,” I remembered mama saying as she reached for the canisters of flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and set them on the counter top. She sprinkled water in the flour and seasoned it with a dash of salt and baking powder. She didn’t use spoons. Her fingers were brown, the color of maple syrup with rounded nails. Working hands. She dug into the...
Las Mujeres by Gerda Govine Ituarte
“Las Mujeres” by Gerda Govine Ituarte watch daughters who listen with their eyes whose voices bloom they flower between rain drops weave their lives inside dreams with grandmothers’ breath future awakes in mouth of now. ____________________ Share your response to this work, in any form, here Gerda Govine Ituarte Artist Statement: Her work appeared in The Altadena Poetry Review Anthology,...
Great-Grandmother Annetta by Lisa Lutwyche
“Great-Grandmother Annetta” by Lisa Lutwyche Once I learned to watch her hands I forgot to be afraid of her whiskers. Twisted driftwood fingers tied with the blue ropes of her veins. Skin like draped patterned silk, or spotted wax, melted, crinkled, folded over sinewy bands. Quick machines, those deft fingers snapped green beans like cold jade, “pop-clink, pop-clink, pop-clink” into a thick white bowl with...
The Suitcase by Rinat Harel
“The Suitcase” by Rinat Harel 1. Lifting the lid, she said, “Bonbons for my girls”; ghosts in her German accent floating about. “Dollhouse table,” my sister declared. “A sofa, and this chair.” Collecting the wrapping paper, I inhaled Granny’s flowery perfume, and imagined her house in London. 2. The drifting desert sand, Mother removes from Granny’s gravestone...
Post-Post-Traumatic Stress by Samantha Lamph
“Post-Post-Traumatic Stress” by Samantha Lamph Trauma is passed down, inherited from past generations like heirloom jewelry or black and white photographs of family we’ll never meet; it is a recessive gene waiting to be expressed. I hear her screaming, that ancient woman. I feel the thrash, the flood of adrenaline that left her soul in ruins yet preserved her body, so we both could survive. In my pulse, she...
Flight Theory by Alison Adair
“Flight Theory” by Alison Adair Gorlice, 1908 ____________________ Share your response to this work, in any form, here Allison Adair’s recent poems appear or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2015, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review, Mid-American Review, Mississippi Review, Missouri Review (Poem of the Week), Shenandoah, Southwest Review, and Third Coast, among other...
The Saint of Memory: The Peas by Linda Ravenswood
“The Saint of Memory: The Peas” by Linda Ravenswood She came from the West where rain measures the hours in drops against the house, where land breaks into great crags along the coast of water. Her high, gothic façade of radio hollowly sings through the sitting room where she’s been waiting against the window panes; it’s raining down the garden rows, and the trellis is beating the overhang like a metronome....
The Button Box by Rebecca Olander
“The Button Box” by Rebecca Olander I loved combing through my grandmother’s box of buttons, picking favorites to keep. I thought it wonderful to say...
Legacy by Carol Smallwood
“Legacy” by Carol Smallwood My grandmother pinned hairpin lace bibs on grandfather’s bathing beauty calendars, crocheted jelly glass holders for Queen Anne’s Lace. Her flour sack scarves—hemmed to look like they had no hems, have hourglass patterns echoing her figure unfamiliar with backs of chairs. As the neighborhood midwife she whispered: “garcon” for a boy, “jeune fille” if a girl to keep such delicate...
No Love Letters by Helen Casey
“No Love Letters” by Helen Casey There were no love letters to my grandmother. She could not read. I would be making it up if I described thin blue sheets of words binding them. Or roses. He was, as she was, from the old country, the man who would be my grandfather. Without money. It was 1919. He came to return a gun he had used. Your children need a father. Mine need a mother. She might have liked more of...
Generativity by Marsha Rosenzweig Pincus
“Generativity,” by Marsha Rosenzweig Pincus, Waves: A Confluence of Women’s Voices ____________________ Share your response to this work, in any form, here Marsha Rosenzweig Pincus is an educator, artist, and writer. Her first screenplay, On the Corner of Eden and Grace, won recognition for Drama in Screenplay Festival 2015. In 2015, she developed and performed a one-woman show about her teaching career, Chalkdust,...
At Least Prostitutes Bring Home Money by Sokunthary Svay
“At Least Prostitutes Bring Home Money” by Sokunthary Svay Why you come home late in the dark You wear the dress and stupid big boot no job Where the money you want me save? At least prostitute bring home money What you want for dinner—noodle again? Yeah you like your big noodle Don’t worry about freckle American men like that Go to college get marry then work bring home money...
Maternity by Sue Churchill
“Maternity” by Sue Churchill My daughter has a job interview so I am bargaining with God recklessly trading away all pearls of happiness, the ones I sought so long in the dark depths, holding my breath to bursting. It’s not just one or two I concede, it’s all and any and ever. I throw in the ewes, the lambs I looked for early and late, the one I fished for in the wet darkness of the mother, its clammy form a...
I have not yet written a single page by daylight.
Harriet Jacobs
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Ritual Oct 25, 2024
