Beth Brown Preston: Still Life with Flowers
Momma cautioned me about the dangers of an artist’s life
when in sixth grade I revealed that I wanted to write poetry.
I painted my first canvas as a high school senior:
“The Breast” — an enormous painting of my bronze right teat.
Dawn Potter: About Mothers
How can I judge the worth of a brooding life?
In a busy restaurant my giant son leans his head on my shoulder,
and I am his mother again, lifting his memory into my arms.
Elizabeth Gaskell: On Visiting the Grave of My Stillborn Little Girl
I think of thee in these far happier days
Wendy Mnookin: In the Small Rotary
where Route 100 meets School Street,
two cows graze.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn: Diminution
Did she believe—she did, I think— the right
cliché could save us, help us not to feel
alone, so many bees in that same hive—
spilt milk, sow’s ear, Achilles heel.
Valerie Duff: Follow You Into
In the Wellesley
Botanic Gardens
the seedlings
spread in rows