By Darlene Young
Cool you are, and warm. Your nine-year-old body still knows how to romp, Careen in delight, Rejoice in flight of running or tickles But only until you remember You’re cool. You might forget and sidle up to my hip For a hug—but I’m careful Not to mention it. You muss your hair just so these …
By Marie Brian
Harpooning—the Undoubtable Shot from your sea-swept eyes, Frothing mouths— Bobbing, billowing On the world’s flood tide. The spindrift of your good news— Wholly flung Fervor and Hope Of Kingdoms, triumphs, doles— Oil for salt And brine for wine. Beyond liminal promises— Unveiling the Blue Of seas and skies. Answers bask on shorelines— The great and …
By Elaine Rumsey Wagner
Too impatient for mortar I build tumbled towers. Gossamer-fine spider silk Slings my elephant-bridges together No bumbling drum of concrete truck Disturbs my peace Fine damp sand holds shapes Like magic. And I, I sit in my own safety, My silly solitude, And await hordes and storms.
By Sharlee Mullins Glenn
I dreamed of Oxford . . . (spires, a thousand spires, endless lectures, musty halls a solitary self in a Bodleian expanse A good life, my dear Wormwood. An orderly life.) then awakened to laundry and things to be wiped (countertops, noses, bottoms) How did this happen? And when, exactly? Time flows, it flows, it flows and …
By Sharlee Mullins Glenn
She strains toward heaven arms outstretched like a child wanting to be held then falls back, outspent subdued by gravity’s ponderous sway How long must she stay suspended as she is between fire and air between here and there incarnation and release? Do not rage, mother (leave the raging to the poet and his father, …
By Valerie Nielson Williams
There comes that moment When I realize It’s over. I’ve tried to tell myself He still cares, Still loves me, That he just needs a break, Some time away For everything to be normal again. I know he must feel the same Somewhere in his heart, He made the same vows After all We all …
By Valerie Nielson Williams
I walked into the room where you were; You looked so peaceful, resting there. So natural, like you’d looked many times over the two decades I’d watched you sleep. I leaned over and kissed your lips still warm, But not reciprocating now. I smoothed your snow-white hair with my hand. By small measure my heart …
By Lani B. Whitney
Smiling, Mischevious, And proud, she Takes all the Clothes off the shelf, The books too, And cleans the drawer. Jane is learning to walk.
By Heather Harris-Bergevin
Far above Superior today I glimpsed our heaven married To the maiden Earth, and saw her slip onto her glistening finger that double wedding band; I thought: how little we can search from ground to sky only to see perchance one half of one beribboned band, much less two; ringing round rosie in all their …
By Heather Harris-Bergevin
As I have many sisters, someday I shall have a daughter, (as you are all my sisters, and all my daughters) and she will look at me, with my three legs and one arm, raising her and her sisters to God, pointing their souls toward Christ, And say, Mama, how is it with your third …