Pebble art by Sharon Nowlan

I met someone.
You can call her what you want.
I’m going to call her

biological mother
for now.

Jesus, we look alike.

We’re a little lost.
We talk and talk.
Jesus, we sounds alike.
We order green tea and forget to drink it.
Questions, answers
Questioned, answered
Cheekbones, same
talk talk talk
Expressions, similar
talk talk talk
Height, identical
tangent, tangent, back
talking, we search
feature by feature
looking for connections, more
than superficial?

I think so

We leave
each other, shaking
a 27-year-old embrace
found.

It’s ok.
It’s all ok.
It always has been.
It was all for the best. This
is where
we are

supposed to start.

Umbilical-Collage by Miya Turnbull

There you are
with your comma-shaped body
your ball-point eyes
your scotch tape skin
your paperclip limbs
I put a yellow sticky-note on my belly
our first game of Hide
and Seek

Don’t peek, little baby

You’re not ready for this world yet
I haven’t bought you
any onesies
You’d been chilly, naked baby
so float on
like a little mitochondrion
double membrane
liquid buffer
I wish I had
a periscope
to see in your cristae space
to crawl into your matrix

Someday soon
I’ll see you
grow right before my eyes
like the sea monkeys
at the back of the Archies
so happy, families
smiling bravely
with their crowns or
three-pronged heads
“So eager to please, they can even be trained”
the ad said.

I’d also like
the X-ray vision

glasses, to see through me
straight to you.

Things We Carry by Louise Pentz

What does it feel like
to know you are going to die
not die like everyone must.

But die
because the one who says
he loves you
who says he will always
love you
who says if you leave him
he will kill you
because he loves you so much
he wants no one else near you.

To know that each day
could be the day he comes
when no one else is home
the day he hides under the porch
to surprise you when you come home.

To feel the breeze from
the bedroom window
broken again and unlocked
to know he is somewhere
in your house, in your home.

To believe
your only escape
is death itself.

[Marie D. stabbed 33 times by her former husband in 1997.]

You won’t find heirloom silver, Royal Albert China or a cut glass crystal vase—all trashed in exchange for that second-hand leather-bound copy of Nicholas Nickleby in its original ornate well-kept box. A History of Art Impressionism essential to answer her question: how do I define ‘neoimpressionsm’. A fat ragged, coverless dictionary, the ‘u’ page is still missing. Spelling bee lists & dictee for grade 5. The last dregs of morning coffee asleep in the handless, chipped pottery cup I should toss but can’t. There’s the Crayolas box but blizzard blue, burnt sienna and desert stand are missing. The remains of the last Halloween costume when you dressed up as Quasimodo’s sister: a glue gun, glitter and silky blue ribbons. A reminder letter about winter soccer. In a hundred years what will the archeologist decide went on here.

“Rooted” by Andrea Pottyondy