Ever since Sarah was born blue and floppy and her cardiologist father resuscitated her, I have imagined a disaster. After Ben appeared, five years later, limp from my labor pain meds and large from my ice cream intake, a steady humming tension surfaced. I was never...
When my Aunt Ada sits down to write to me, she’ll start with the weather: “Greetings on this cold and rainy Tuesday morning at 10:30 . . .” She might finally conclude the letter with a Friday afternoon postscript. As she nears the end of the fourth or sixth or eighth...
A girl between eleven and fourteen (a gauzy and vibrant age) will enter menses. She will have been (awkwardly) informed by teachers conscripted by the state. The girl will inscribe (in carefully rounded letters) her question about tampon strings that snap. She will...
“What do you like to read?” Sister Marie Claire was old. She wanted nothing to do with the Second Vatican Council, and her habit was black, and it completely covered her hair, and her face below it was creamy white and puffy. She was the Principal at Immaculata...
I once woke up in wild winter, paralyzed by change, when claws emerged and storms surged sunken snow and white wombs from where I came. In mere months, seduced by scents, spanned by veins, I unfolded into sun, blossomed in rain with vernal wings– a quivering,...
Black bodies are honeysuckle For dry white lips Sweet tender stalks Crushed between towers of broken ivory You crush my spine To taste the nectar inside Tear into my flowers, The Eden, nestled between my thighs Rip open my leaves And drink the milk under my tongue...
Daughter, take this. The most powerful word on Earth is no. Hold it in between your teeth like a kernel. Another word: Sorry. Hold that one under your tongue, let it dissolve like cotton candy. Here, say I am worthy. Here, say empowered. When your brothers complain...
If we took the tangents of each crease that lies along the curves of your lips we could make matrices, incandescent constellations extended in 4 dimensions through the continuum, of all the things you’ve ever said to me— The 1st π Day I baked blueberry & you...
If Mother Braids a Waterfall by Dayna Patterson FollowFollowFollow Book Review by Rebecca Beardsall If Mother Braids a Waterfall, an intimate, beautiful crafted poetry collection, invites the reader to explore familial threads, religion, and redemptive release. —...
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her Houseby Cherie Jones FollowFollowFollow How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House: A Novelby Cherie Jones Little, Brown and CompanyFebruary 2, 2021 Book Review by Colleen Lutz Clemens Cherie Jones’s debut novel How the One-Armed...
