The Day Mandela Died

by Alicia Vandevorst

Now, these years, with tinsel through my hair, my grandmother
sits, hands slackened between her thighs, and watches
 
the wash of sunlight through my mother’s window; that
is beautiful, she says, in her empty wasp-nest voice,
all day the wind has shaken the shadows on the walls
and the potted flowers glow, it has been so quick, this day,
she says, at last, I am so happy just to sit and watch.

But in my sorrow I washed two towels with the delicates
and in my rush to fix the sheets, I left the door ajar
and the heat goes out that my husband wanted in, and that is like before, 
when the cat ran wild from the opened cage into the winter wood, 
with his limp, at dusk, he cried in answer, but no longer came to my hands.

What hands can do, that is what has passed from her
and both sun and shadow flash with glory like accomplishments;
but she does not wrestle with her powers anymore
and can enjoy the whole in passive gratitude.
I wonder how my death will be; that I may sit in sunlight, 

warm with impartial heat, bony frame wrapped in a shawl
and the last glimpse is of red, lit leaves.
This is a way I might let light usher me out,
as if the sun’s pressure became more real
than the stories in these busy bones.

Tonight, I wrap beside my sleepy daughter,
hold her moist, plump hand, again,
sing, dee, dee, dee, and swing low
sweet chariot, coming for to carry, and
she asks for me to stay a little longer.

Eleven Daffodils

by Meryl Natchez

What am I to make

of these daffodils,

perfumed strumpets, picked

who knows where

by who knows whom

possibly genetically

modified, commercially

fertilized, spritzed

with pesticide?

These questions did not arise

when I tossed

the budded stems

in my shopping cart

on a chill afternoon:

essence of spring

for a dollar twenty-nine.

Now they sit

and radiate scent,

molecules of daffodil

mixing it up

with molecules of oxygen

all about my desk

until I am dizzy

with this year’s crop

of praise

and regret.

* * * * *

“Eleven Daffodils” first appeared in Canary, Spring 2014.

Motherhood

by Meryl Natchez

I like it that they give robot babies to teens

to simulate parenthood,

that the robots are programmed to cry if they

aren’t held. I think the teen mother has

to hold them—no one else can make them

shut up—but maybe I am only

imagining that, maybe that’s a level of need

only real babies demonstrate.

Because a robot can’t prepare you.

Even if it cries all the time,

it isn’t wired

into your nervous system.

You can’t imagine the despair and rage snarled within

the besotted adoration

that tiny body wrenches from you

at birth.

This is the blood vow,

the one you cannot break.

You can barely acknowledge, even to yourself,

the force of the urge for escape,

and you’re lying if you say you don’t

understand how anyone could bash

a baby’s brains against a wall.

With luck,

you don’t do it.

But still, you understand.

* * * * *

“Motherhood” first appeared in the anthology: The Mamas and the Papas, City Works Press, 2010

Time Doesn’t Heal

( For my dear sister, Kay )

by Kim Sisto Robinson

Not a day unfolds without

thoughts of you. Your auburn

hair falls over my face smelling

of lilacs, Tabu perfume, summer.

Home.

Time doesn’t stop.

It continues ticking as if

it knows nothing, sees nothing,

feels nothing.

Merciless.

When I think about your murder,

my organs twist and turn inside my body

like hot fists, angry stones. My bones splinter

into sharp fangs.

Hurting me.

Time doesn’t heal.

It makes you remember, makes

you forget, makes you love fiercely,

madly, completely…

as if tomorrow will never come.

* * * * *

Kim Sisto Robinson, whose sister was murdered by a husband who then killed himself on May 26, 2010, asks that her poem be accompanied by The Domestic Abuse Hotline phone number: 1-800-799-7233.

Bottle Journal – A Brief History

by Miriam O'Neal

1.

Green as moss under the pines on Beaver Dam Brook,

clear as a spring that feeds a bog, we married for love.

All that day the clouds played havoc with the light,

blew a tune out of a brown jug— like the Gurnet on foggy nights.

2.

One shoulder tucked against my ribs the sudden pop

as of champagne uncorked; lips milk blistered,

slack in sleep, you dreamed your way to me. Here, take my glass

heart, before the shadows spread like owls’ wings.

3.

He loved me. He couldn’t forget he ever said that.

4.

Blue baby. Red too. He saved you; cord around your neck like kite string

Nurse, there’s something wrong here.

Pelvic bones shifted like tectonic plates

to sieve you into this world—

Here. I give you this.

Will I Remember You

by Debra Kiva

There may come a day

I won't know you.

I will look at your pretty face

and wonder if you are

friend or foe.

It may start by

knowing your name

or not knowing it.

Your face may be

familiar like the

bank teller that you

bump into at Trader Joes -

Your eyes squint with the

pondering of,

“How do I know

you? “

Usually, one can find the connection

but not always.

And the rest of the day her face

comes into your mind and you wonder.

But, I may never recall your face.

I will pretend and present well.

At least at first until the ability is lost to me.

I may smile at you in my attempt

to show recognition.

But you'll know. It won't be

that smile you gleamed when we

sat at the Italian restaurant in

Malibu, when the young, handsome waiter gave me

a complimentary glass of Cabernet and winked.

That night I felt special

that I still had “it.”

No, instead, it will be that

tentative grin, fake but with effort.

And in the effort that you witness,

your heart will swell and break.

I may stroke your face

maybe with the hopes

that the touch will go through

my fingertips, rise into my

frontal lobe, translate the touch

with the memory of you and remind me

help me to know, to

remember

something

before it is

erased forever.

And to remember that many years ago,

you grew inside of me --

you whom I should never,

ever be able to forget.

* * * * *

Debra Kiva has been writing poetry as means to process challenging situations for over 25 years. She is co-director of Gold Country Threshold Choir which provides comfort and compassion through song to those on the threshold of life. She currently lives in the Sierra Foothills with her husband and black lab. 

In honor of yesterday's full moon, the tenth Moon Prize* goes to Ellen LaFleche's moving poem "After"—backdating to the full moon of June 9, 2017.

After

by Ellen LaFleche

I unwrap a slab of soap scented with honey and milk

after I dip the washcloth in water so hot

it could make a living person shiver

as if the steam that scalds my palms

could unstiffen your limbs, could re-warm your bones,
could make you sit up in bed with the biblical grace of the risen

after I wash your eyelids, your lips, your temples,
after I dip my finger in the small font at the end of your spine
after I bathe you between your thighs
as if you could feel soap suds bursting against your glans
 

after I kneel by your bed
and dry your feet with my hair

I pick up the phone

and make the calls.

* * * * *

Ellen LaFleche is the author of three chapbooks: Workers' Rites (Providence Athenaeum), Beatrice (Tiger's Eye Press) and Ovarian (Dallas Poets Community Press.)  She won the Tor House Poetry Prize, the New Millennium Poetry Prize, the Hunger Mountain Prize, and the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Prize.  She is an assistant judge for the North Street Book Prize and a freelance editor.  She is currently finishing a manuscript tentatively titled Walking into Lightning with a Metal Urn in My Hands, a collection of poems following the death of her husband to ALS.  "After" is part of this manuscript.

* The Moon Prize ($91) is awarded once a month on the full moon for a story or poem posted in Writing In A Woman's Voice during the moon cycle period preceding a full moon. I don't want this to be competition. I simply want to share your voices. And then I want to pick one voice during a moon cycle for the prize. I fund this with 10% of my personal modest income. I wish I could pay for each and every poem or story, but I am not that rich. (Yet.) For a while I will run two months behind with this prize—eventually I expect to catch up to the current month.

Why 91? 91 is a mystical number for me. It is 7 times 13. 13 is my favorite number. (7 isn't half bad either.) There are 13 moons in a year. I call 13 my feminist number, reasoning that anything that was declared unlucky in a patriarchal world has to be mystically excellent. Then there are 4 times 91 days in a year (plus one day, or two days in leap years), so approximately 91 days each season. In some Mayan temples there are or were 91 steps on each of four sides. Anyway, that's where the number 91 comes from, not to mention that it's in the approximate neighborhood of 100.