Issue 22
April 2025
The Opposite of Panic
It is impossible, on an airplane,
to imagine how we could be so cruel
to one another—
all those miniature houses and matchbox
cars, all the fields and farms and forked
lanes laid out like a well-worn quilt,
and next to me a mother, pacing the aisle,
singing softly in her baby’s ear.
When the plane lurches
and I scramble for something solid,
it is my mother’s voice I hear
in my mind. Listen, she’d say.
Always tell yourself the direction
you’re moving. It was a trick of the mind,
of course, a way to regain a sense
of personal power, and still, I sit on planes
and say this to my own children now,
drawing out the vowels in the words
like she did—
up down
left right
backward forward.
I am not so frightened of flying
anymore—life on the ground
is fearsome enough. Still,
I wake in the morning and braid
my children’s hair. I cut their toast
into shapes. I light a candle.
I do what my mother taught me
and remind myself where I am going—
forward, forward,
always forward.
Red Light Green Light
At the red light I do not tell my son we were seconds away from being the crushed car in the intersection. I don’t tell him about how when he was two weeks old I slipped on the edge of the stair and as he flew from my arms to the floor I was convinced I had killed him. I do not tell him everyday I pray to a god I’m not sure I believe in to keep him safe. What else is a mother supposed to do? When the light turns green I wait two extra breaths before accelerating and tell him that today I saw the first signs of tulips. I ask if he wants to stay up to see the blood moon. I say everything is coming alive again do you feel it?
Sex is Like Shoes
Sex is like shoes! Grammy announced from her end of the Sunday dinner table. I cannot recall the exact context of this conversation, or that anything on the narrow spectrum of: Boy, this stew is great – Pass the pepper that would make this unsolicited-super-spicy-and-certainly-somewhat-sage advice make sense. But there it was, in the very middle of middle-school era, in the late-middle of the Lord’s Day. It wasn’t as if we were closing out the Kama Sutra, or circling up for a seance for the late Dr. Ruth. It’s just that this was just the sort of thing that would come up (forgive me: pun absolutely intended) with my maternal grandmother. And to avoid leaving you worse for wear, I’ll clue you in on her two pairs. One was like a flip flop. Because I could never tell if it was flip, or if it was flop. The other was like some damn, tight flats, couldn’t even take a walk around the block without getting a blister. And I could not look at my sister as she went on to wish her (and me) a fashionable fit for life.
What You Missed at Bachelor Night
after Brad Aaron Modlin
The episode, of course—that thing Jenny C. said that made Amanda R. cry; that windy kiss in the helicopter, headsets bonking together like middle-school braces, the crumpling faces of the rose-less women. The homemade sourdough scones Evie baked because the day stretched on like a blank ream of paper, begging to be filled. Dina dissecting every bulge and blemish of the gorgeous women on-screen, holding a pillow across her belly. Rachel, starry-eyed as the leading man validates each woman parading her traumas in a bid for connection, imagining her own husband’s hand on her thigh as he asks her how she feels, really. And the whispered confidences after the final rose— the thorns in the flesh, the shards of glass under our bare feet. For some reason, we do not say I want to be with you because I am lonely. Instead, we turn on a show and gather at its plastic altar in exchange for those few moments before we slide our feet into slippers and walk out to our cars in the snow.
Could I Be Like the Oak Tree?
did you know a negative
pregnancy test only has one line,
even if you press it to the window?
even if you dig it like a dog
out of the trash hours later?
(i do)
did you know you can imagine
indigestion is a blastocyst?
did you know the internet will convince
you PMS is actually “early pregnancy”?
(i do)
each month, i hold
hands with hope
and her sister, despair
(hope is more fun)
i beg, bargain
plead, pray
empty my tears
(my wallet too)
i wear each month’s sorrow
clasped around my wrist
stacked like bracelets
(they circle, spin, clatter, crash)
in my daydreams
i stroke my swollen middle
whisper poetry to you under a full moon
sing to you in the shower
you’d have honey hair like your sister
green eyes like your dad
a wide smile like your brother
i would twirl your wispy hair
around my index finger while you nurse
i’d gaze out the window
gasp as the oak tree risks green leaves again, even after winter’s death.
The Secret To Life Is Looking Stupid
Because if you’re not willing to risk it
for the biscuit,
then why be in the kitchen at all?
Sweet thing, this is not the time for modesty,
for censoring your own North Star.
Silly girl, the world is hungry and beauty-ached —
a room full of stale bread and hardened hearts.
We’re rolled too thin, broken, and searching
for something
of substance.
You could be that something.
Your art could sustain us,
if only you’d be brave enough
to let it.
Dear one, what I’m telling you is this:
be a fool for the things you love
and the things you love
will be a fool right back
for you.
A Style Guide for Dressing Broad Shoulders
You could spend your life buying v-necks and scoop necks to minimize your frame and balance your silhouette to make yourself look smaller, more compact or You could buy a boxy t-shirt a muscle tank or two You could embrace the strength your frame has to offer, grab some dumbbells and make those shoulders even bigger This life is heavy there's always so much to carry but lucky for you, you've got the shoulders for it
A Prayer for the Overstimulated and Touched Out
LORD, I want to answer all queries with a scream. The children and I are one sweaty contort: touching, tapping, whining, screaming. The phone rings, it pings, the woman talking lies things like, “I don’t know why he can’t see his kids,” the dinner burns, My neighbour bangs the windows, the doors, she yells for me. The children grab at me. All my learning is for nothing I am the last dangling thread of a tooth I am a sole worn away at the toe. Why try to be patient when my anger, hidden for so long under, no worries and yes, I can and I’ve got this threatens to engulf me I growl, I jump out of my skin. Don’t touch me, you can’t come in. I can’t take it anymore, I roar. Who is sufficient for this? Who can carry this? I hate this, LORD. I don’t want to be the angry one, the overwhelmed one, the overstimulated one. I thought I was calm. I’m sorry for disregarding my limits. I’m sorry I disregard rest. Give me your peace. Help me to tend what you’ve given, gently and patiently, to go to bed early, and when I’ve failed, again, to apologise quickly and truly. O LORD, you sustain stars and nebulae, atoms and atmospheres. Sustain me, I pray.
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True gems in this release. Such depth shared. I loved the Oak Tree (I understand that longing!) and the prayer for the overstimulated. I resonate: I have twins.
LADIES. I cannot. These are beautiful. Fantastic. A gut punch to the heart in the best way possible. Brava, brava, BRAVA!