Dec 10, 2020 | Aging, Commissioned, Grief, Gus Stevens, Irregular Rhyme, Mom, Winter
She appears in the glass like a watermark and her image in the window tells the score. Her eyes, reflected, look blinkered, tired, sore as she scrapes the dishes clean. Inside: herself. Outside: the dark, and this old face between. It seemed just weeks...
Dec 1, 2019 | Aging, Daughter, Grief, Gus Stevens, Quatrains
She wakes from her nap with bedhead and pillow creases on her cheek then whispers, “When it’s gark out, Momma coming home?” in toddler speak. I know correcting her lisp can wait for some other afternoon so I brush her hair back and confirm,...
Aug 21, 2018 | Alexandrine, Daughter, Grief, Gus Stevens, Hexameter, Love
The little girl did not know what he was at first— the yellow thing that did not drop if you let go. Still he filled her with so much joy she’d either burst or grow wings so she could float with him through the air. He smiled from above while she laughed along...
Aug 16, 2018 | Grief, Guest Writer, Mark Hernberg, Mom, Quatrains, Whale
She swam to these shallow waters to give birth. Knowing only the quickening of her heart, the heart inside her; resonance of body within body, sea within sea. Her newborn calf sputtered brine, tasting the new waters. Each breath a new ocean. Again she sings him her...
Aug 4, 2018 | Grief, Gus Stevens, Heptameter, Hexameter, Mom, Whale
She let go yesterday; she thought she could let go, let him slip from her nose, and gently from the sun to sink deeper than her lungs could go; it was done. She carried her son for nine suns, and eighteen moons before. Could she let go, when the tide turned within her...
Jun 5, 2018 | Alexandrine, Daughter, Dream, Grief, Gus Stevens, Hexameter
In my dream, I held too many things in my hands and my fingers grappled and fumbled with the load afraid I’d drop one as I stumbled down the road for I’d balanced several things atop an icebox and my dream-drunk brain was slow, weighted down with sand...
