Motherless Mothers and the Daughters They Bear I mother myself gentle because my mother’s hands were rough, cracked, and ruby ringed. When her mother died, she kept all the jewelry and left me nothing. Maybe when your mother never mothers you, it makes you a hoarder. Mother’s Day commemorative plates from the 70s to the […]
Anna Kirby
ANNA KIRBY is a community college English instructor living in North Carolina, USA. Her collages have been selected for juried exhibitions across the country.
Motherless Mothers and the Daughters They Bear
The Day When the Sun was Brighter than Ever
by Gouri Mehra
The Day When the Sun Was Brighter Than Ever On a sticky June morning, when the sun is brighter than ever, I hold onto my mother’s free hand as we make our way through streets lined with people, vehicles, cattle, more people. Turning left into a narrow opening, she follows the herd (of people, not […]
Leaving the Cusp
by Sayantani Roy
Leaving the Cusp In a grotto of debdaru trees, Father sits with novitiates, boys slightly older than us but still in their teens. These are the sprawling grounds of a seventeenth century church on the banks of the Hooghly River near Kolkata. Father, a stern Romanian in his thirties, speaks fluent Bengali and is perpetually […]
Swimsuit Scraps
by Lizzie Lawson
Swimsuit Scraps The summer after my sophomore year of high school, I tanned in the sunny patch of grass behind the toolshed, where no one could see me from the house or yard. I had procured two hand-me-down bikinis from a friend, one white and one cerulean blue, and my mission was to bronze my […]
