With today's gorgeous poem, "On Earth" by Laura Foley, Writing in a Woman's Voice concludes its active online presence. Published posts will remain online indefinitely. Thank you all for eight years and 2359 important and wonderful poems and stories. 

On Earth

by Laura Foley
 

I find myself, this cloudy spring day,
on a quiet country road,
wild geese nesting in cow-fields
on one hand, idle blackbirds
singing in wetlands, on the other,
streams trickling free of ice,
beavers sinking calmly
into a pond’s deepest corners,
the air glad as moss for its moisture,
the sky a great arch
of pearled grey, in me,
as it is in heaven. 


* * * * *

Laura Foley is a bi/queer poet, author of nine poetry collections. She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, The Common Good Books Poetry Prize, The Poetry Box Editor's Choice Chapbook Award, the Bisexual Book Award, Atlanta Review’s Grand Prize and others. Her work has been widely published in such journals as Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, American Life in Poetry, and included in numerous anthologies such as How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence.

Skies

by Alethea Eason


I never knew skies the way I do now,
how they breathe down to the horizon
with continents of clouds.

Winter is outlined by crooked bare limbs,
cerulean nakedness punctuated by trees,
branches like neurolines searching for lines of poetry.

Bracing cold.
Rooster crowing.
Traffic humming.
The singlewides braced on crates,
the desperate fields of weeds,
the splatter of glass on the trail
that leads to the ridge above my house.

My neighbor's chihuahuas irritate the night.
I do not sleep. The sirens fly down the street.
The ravens have stayed for winter.
Their cawing the only songs
on lawns white as powdered sugar.

Is the sky more yellow or pink?
It hangs low. Snow threatens but does not fall.
There's a shrine in the neighborhood.
I imagine Mary shivering.

I never knew how to bear winter the way I do now.
My body, a continent of clouds.
How it breathes the early morning light,
the sky—poetry, the earth—a dream.


* * * * *

Alethea Eason's poetry has appeared in El Palacio, New Mexico Poetry Anthology, The
Ekphrastic Review, and the book Vision and Verse, published by the Redwood Writer's
Club. She has written four novels, Charlotte and the Demons being the latest. She lives
near a volcano with her husband, a dog and a cat.

Someone Else’s Memory

by Sarah Russell


Pat and I sit drinking cocoa 
on a snow-clad December day. 
Remember that Christmas Eve, 
she says, when we were young 
and went caroling with my cousins? 
I gave you my blue stocking cap 
you wound round and round 
your neck to stay warm.

And in a rush, I remember the night, 
the carols, that Bill sang loud 
and out of tune, my new, not-warm-
enough red coat, and her cap
I found years later in a crushed box 
on the closet floor, dirty from muddy boots 
and dust, wondered who it belonged to, 
how it wound up there—the cap I washed 
and reached out the car window to give 
to a homeless man, how he thanked me 
and put it on, wrapping it round and round 
his neck, grinning through broken teeth. 


* * * * *

Sarah Russell’s poetry and fiction have been published in Rattle, Misfit Magazine, Third Wednesday, Poetry Breakfast, and many other journals and anthologies. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She has two poetry collections published by Kelsay Books, I lost summer somewhere and Today and Other Seasons. Her novella The Ballerina Swan Lake Mobile Homes Country Club Motel was published by Running Wild Press. She blogs at https://SarahRussellPoetry.net

The Alchemy of Longing

by Suzanne Allen


All is never said, but when no whole words remain in the mortar, no pestle because it has flown, barely any shreds of common threads, Charity knows it’s time to begin again. Recommencer. Huffing the ashes of a borrowed dream, she marvels at how she can burn a thing down. No wonder she prefers crushes, secret or otherwise, to the impact of too-fast love. Unrequited attractions cut more smoothly than the bait and switch. Hook, line, and sinker, she thinks, sighing into a beaker, thank goddess we’ve cleared the Capricorn Moons. She used to crave vials of guts, wells of will and wherewithal, but it's not like that anymore. Gathering symbols wherever she can, writing recipes for everything, Charity has no choice but to trust her heart to remember what her mind can’t seem to. Earth, air, water, fire—she conjures them, stirs the pot.


* * * * *

Suzanne Allen is a writing teacher and artist born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles. She holds an MFA from California State University in Long Beach, where she still lives. In 2021, she published a full-length collection of mostly pandemic poems, We Wash Our Hands, and her collection of Paris poems, Awkward, was released in February, 2024. Others appear widely online and in print. The “Charity” sequence is part of a larger series of self-caricatures from her forthcoming collection, Attempts at Exhausting a Crush, to be released late spring, 2025.

 

Photo by Michael Schulte 

Early Morning Adoration

by Marjorie Maddox


Pale sky too shy to praise itself,
trees are the first to name glory
tangled in their tresses. What can the breeze
proclaim but Yes! when boughs that could bow down
to dying, instead raise bare twigs
in winter adoration?

"January Dawn" by Karen Elias

* * * * *

"Early Morning Adoration" was previously published in Orchards Poetry Review, 2023.

Professor at Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published 16 collections of poetry—including How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? (Kelsay); Seeing Things (Wildhouse); Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); Begin with a Question (International Book and Illumination Book Award Winners); Shanti Arts ekphrastic collaborations Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (w/Karen Elias) and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (w/Anna Lee Hafer www.hafer.work and others) is forthcoming. She also has published a story collection, 4 children’s books, and two anthologies (co-editor), and is assistant editor of Presence and host of Poetry Moment www.marjoriemaddox.com

Karen Elias is an artist / activist who uses photography to record the fragility of the natural world and raise awareness about the climate crisis. Recently she has also been using photo-collage techniques to explore more complex and psychological aspects of our human connections to nature. Her work is in private collections, has been exhibited extensively, and has won numerous awards.  

 

Au Comptoir Turenne Toute Seule

by Suzanne Allen


Charity doesn’t message the man she tortures in her ways, drinks a glass of wine instead, big, and probably another. She’ll order a salad later, maybe even a dessert. This first of June is fairly young and bright and cold like March, and her horoscope says, It’s time to allow any unconventional visions to emerge and shine, and, This year will be different...

Children chase each other around the columns of Église Saint-Denys-du-Saint-Sacrement, and there goes another 96 bus to miss, so she can stay right here, freezing but not frozen, at last.

Charity didn’t come here to fall in love, never has, but she always does. It’s impossible for her not to. Always another bright smile to fall for, one more glass of Côtes du Rhône to fall into, one more step to fall off of, another chance to be seen, one more half-truth to be shown, like promises in stained glass and always the possibility of another moelleux with ice cream, specks of vanilla, too many points of flavor to ever regret.


* * * * *

Suzanne Allen is a writing teacher and artist born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles. She holds an MFA from California State University in Long Beach, where she still lives. In 2021, she published a full-length collection of mostly pandemic poems, We Wash Our Hands, and her collection of Paris poems, Awkward, was released in February, 2024. Others appear widely online and in print. The “Charity” sequence is part of a larger series of self-caricatures from her forthcoming collection, Attempts at Exhausting a Crush, to be released late spring, 2025.

She Was Certain 

                                   by Elaine Reardon
 
 
She was doing the right thing.
Her mother-in-law gave the kids 
processed foods, M&Ms,
 
and sugared peanut butter, for chrissakes.
She wanted to put them into frilly dresses,
didn't like them messy,
 
the way toddlers naturally were.
To say nothing of the way she 
ignored the 'no sugar' mandate.
 
So it seemed right, if she
couldn't be trusted beyond
the length of a peanut butter jar
 
that she not be allowed alone with them.
It was obvious she couldn't be trusted. How 
had she brought up her own kids?
 
She was certain of it. She would
do it better, would remake all that
was wrong with her own childhood.
 
Her kids would eat healthy, have
a mom who was always there, a dad
who lifted them with hugs, who stayed.
 
So now why were her kids with her
mother-in-law, when she lay alone
on the couch, recovering after
 
the hospital stay, one whole week
of confusion and pain. It left her so
weak she couldn't lift the baby.
 
Her husband worked long hours
to pay the bills, to get them ahead.
The new social worker said 
 
she couldn't care for her own babies.
She couldn't put breakfast on the table,
heave them out of bed for school.
 
How had things changed so completely?
Now she couldn't see her kids
except for visits twice a week.

Her husband came home and gave
her supper, then went to his mother’s
to read a story and put the kids to bed.

How had her life become the couch,
the kitchen, and endless cups of cold coffee?
                                                                       

* * * * *

Elaine Reardon is a writer, herbalist, and artist and educator. Her first chapbook, The Heart is a Nursery For Hope, won first honors from Flutter Press in 2016, and her second chapbook, Look Behind You, was also published in late 2019 by Flutter Press. Most recently Elaine's work was published in The Common, Galway Review, Pensive Journal, and similar journals. A new chapbook, Stories Told in a Lost Tongue was published by Finishing Line Press in September 2024. www.elainereardon.wordpress.com. 

Widow

by Emalisa Rose


Through latter years, she’d only drive
down the block, mostly the side roads
never past 5, since her eyesight declined
and only for milk and the Marlboros, the
treats for the kitties that came to befriend her,
then back to the room where she'd sit still for hours
crocheting and watching those housewives shows
the occasional morning news or Yankee game and
rarely a mop or a broom would touch down on the floors.

"Who's coming here anyhow," Jane laughed, now
estranged from her sister, whom she'd never let see
how she'd aged without grace, stooped over, arthritic
gray tattered hair, rarely a comb woven through it.

Jane puts up the tree, most of the plasticized branches
all bent, an ensemble of half broken ornaments that
she wouldn’t throw out. She puts on the yule log
that pipes in the songs she would dance to, in the arms
of the man, who she once had called “husband”
for 45 years.


* * * * *

When not writing, Emalisa Rose enjoys crafting and birding. She walks with a group on Sundays through the neighborhood trails spotting some amazing winged ones. She lives near a beach town, which provides much of the inspiration for her work. Some of her poems have appeared in Writing in a Woman's Voice, Spillwords, MadSwirl and other wonderful places.

The Woman In The Sculpture Garden Has My Breasts

by Shaun Pankoski


It is autumn. 
Still, it's warm for November
and no one is here, 
save for a few students, 
wandering and sketching, 
an old man on a bench. I try 
to identify the bronzes by style,
placed here and there 
in a casual precision
that comes so naturally in Japan.
When I come upon her-
the outstretched arms, 
the torso twist, the pointed toe-
she speaks to me. It does me no good
to read the unreadable plaque.
I take the pose. The carrion crows, 
smart and dangerous, caw sharply. 
Oh, Karasu, do you mock me 
for what I have lost, 
or cheer for me, in a land
where no one dares to look
anywhere but down?


* * * * *

Author's note: 'Karasu' is the Japanese word for 'crow.' 

Shaun R. Pankoski (she/her) is a poet most recently from Volcano, Hawaii. A retired county worker and two time breast cancer survivor, she has lived on both coasts as well as the Midwest as an artist’s model, modern dancer, massage therapist and honorably discharged Air Force veteran. Her poems have appeared in several literary journals and blogs including Verse Virtual, ONE ART, Poetry Breakfast and Sheila-na-Gig. 

 

When the Moon Is New

by Joan McNerney


Groping through darkness
knocking everything down.
Down into enormous night
where thoughts unravel.

Memories moan past us as
shadows quiver across walls.
We lie pinned to bed sheets
like captive butterflies.

Dry butterflies, our throats
are brittle, eyes turning
from light. Sore arms reach
for anything soft to hold.

Remembering seasons gone by.
So many lost promises.
This huge moment surrounding us.
Wide awake we wait for the new day.


* * * * *

Joan McNerney’s poetry is published worldwide in over thirty-five countries in numerous literary magazines. Four Best of the Net nominations have been awarded to her. The Muse in Miniature, Love Poems for Michael, and At Work are available on Amazon.com. A new title Light & Shadows has recently been released.

 

downstairs

by Tina Tocco


After Daddy’s head
drops for the night

and my brother and I
get to our knees

to mop the beer
with old factory shirts we keep

for this very thing—
and after we pin the sports section

out on the line
to dry the scores

dribbled with Ballantine—
and after we pull beans and cheese

off plastic plates
and poke it down the drain

because forks scrape—
and after we run water

slow and cold into the bath
so the pipes don’t knock

and stand watch for each other
while we bathe

just in case—

after this
we slip downstairs

and stroke Daddy’s shoulder
and ask,

the way Mom used to,
please

would he take the sports section
off the line

if he wakes up
for work

on account of Mrs. Walker
over the fence

who talks.


* * * * *

"Downstairs" was previously published in Inkwell, Fall 2007.

Tina Tocco is a Pushcart Prize nominee.  Her work has appeared in various journals, including New Ohio Review, River Styx, Crab Creek Review, Roanoke Review, Passages North, Potomac Review, Portland Review, and The Comstock Review. Her poetry was anthologized in Wild Dreams: The Best of Italian Americana (Fordham University Press, 2008) and the Italian-American women’s anthology #Me Too, Anch’io (Poets Wear Prada, 2020). Tina earned her MFA in creative writing from Manhattanville University, where she was editor-in-chief of Inkwell. She also writes flash fiction, teaches creative writing, and has recently completed her first middle grade novel.

When Did She Know

                       by Elaine Reardon


she was in trouble?
First time she was six,
they ran from her dad

late one night, stayed in the
small out of town motel room,
with hardly any traffic coming by.

Her dad burst into their motel
room, wild eyed and shouting,
threatened her mom, and
carried her sister out of their lives.

Was it later, when mom's new
boyfriend climbed into her room
through the porch window
saying shhhh, don't tell?


* * * * *

Elaine Reardon is a writer, herbalist, and artist and educator. Her first chapbook, The Heart is a Nursery For Hope, won first honors from Flutter Press in 2016, and her second chapbook, Look Behind You, was also published in late 2019 by Flutter Press. Most recently Elaine's work was published in The Common, Galway Review, Pensive Journal, and similar journals. A new chapbook, Stories Told in a Lost Tongue was published by Finishing Line Press in September 2024. www.elainereardon.wordpress.com. 

MISSING YOU IS HARD TO MASTER

by Caiti Quatmann


Unbeknownst to us, you vanished,
absent. Absent from lectures. Absent

from work. Absent from Thanksgiving.
The windshield wipers absent from your car

though winter reigned in Wisconsin.
Absent your coat. Absent your hair.

We overlooked the signs.
We missed the lies,

the absences you hid.
And I don’t know how to miss you

when absence still wears your silhouette.
It’s all that composes you now:

the empty chair at the dinner table;
the silence in the cold which

settles more forcefully each winter;
absent from phone calls

and the family group chat
(mom still sucks at texting btw);

absent from my wedding photos;
absent from your nephew’s life;

from holidays at mom and dad's
(well, grandma and grandpa now)

when we light the same-old firepit and
try not to speak about all that's missing.


* * * * *

Missing You Is Hard to Master" was previously published in Quatmann’s debut chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024).

Caiti Quatmann (she/her) is a disabled poet. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024) and Editor-in-Chief for HNDL Mag. Her poetry and personal essays have been published by Thread LitMag, The Closed Eye Open, and others. Caiti lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and teaches at a local Microschool. Find her on Instagram and Threads @CaitiTalks.

 

Eleven O’Clock

by Suzanne Allen


The church bells feel like rain drops off an awning, taste like coins flung into a fountain. Wishes. Charity wishes for nothing more than close attention, prefers to go slowly, balance the weight of herself, the heft of her thoughts as she not-quite lumbers and glides along, smell every sound. The sum of her love, more given than garnered. Her heart hums, more, more, more.


* * * * *

Suzanne Allen is a writing teacher and artist born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles. She holds an MFA from California State University in Long Beach, where she still lives. In 2021, she published a full-length collection of mostly pandemic poems, We Wash Our Hands, and her collection of Paris poems, Awkward, was released in February, 2024. Others appear widely online and in print. The “Charity” sequence is part of a larger series of self-caricatures from her forthcoming collection, Attempts at Exhausting a Crush, to be released late spring, 2025.

 

Abandoned… Package

by Suzanne Allen


Line Twelve gasps to a stop at Trinité, just three stops before Charity’s stop. She listens three times to the tiled echo of the conductor’s instructions before she understands: colis abandonné à Pigalle, il faut descendre. There’s an abandoned package; she must get off the train. Riders trickle out into the bright but cloudy evening on Place d’Estienne d’Orves, as if destined. She pulls up her faith and hope, finds the taxi at the front of the line in front of l’Église de la Sainte Trinité; finally a sign that doesn’t say stop. La Cave Café isn’t far, but this doesn’t stop the driver from first grumbling about the traffic, le travaux, the impending J.O., les Jeux Olympiques. She hears the word, games, gathers herself and fastens her seatbelt; Charity can’t be rushed. She waits for a break in his clouds before asking his name, where he’s from. Haidi, he says, de la Tunisie, and Charity doesn’t miss a beat, says she makes couscous poulet every Easter, then watches him smile in the rearview mirror. My ex taught me, she confesses. He was from Tunisia, too. Then Haidi speaks of spices and lamb, his children, the sea, then he’s dropping her off on the Place Robert-Verdier, says, merci, bonne soirée, don’t give up; on’sait jamais.


* * * * *

Haidi: provider of guidance, leader.

Suzanne Allen is a writing teacher and artist born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles. She holds an MFA from California State University in Long Beach, where she still lives. In 2021, she published a full-length collection of mostly pandemic poems, We Wash Our Hands, and her collection of Paris poems, Awkward, was released in February, 2024. Others appear widely online and in print. The "Charity" sequence is part of a larger series of self-caricatures from her forthcoming collection, Attempts at Exhausting a Crush, to be released late spring, 2025.

Hair

by Sarah Russell


1
It’s a woman’s crowning glory, Mother said, 
and she brushed my hair a hundred strokes 
at night, rolled it in rags so my long curls 
would bounce below the barrettes, wound them 
around her finger each morning. She pulled 
so hard my eyes watered. I hacked each curl 
off with kitchen shears when I turned twelve.

2
“Don’t ever cut it,” he said, and his hands 
were tender beside my face, then drifted
through, beyond. Mother’s mantra 
became my own. I brushed until it gleamed. 
Once he washed it for me like men do 
in Hallmark films. His fingers tangled, 
but I didn’t cry since women never cry 
in scenes like that.

3
The doctor said it would fall out, but the clumps 
in the shower drain startled me. I went to a salon
and told the girl to cut it off, right down 
to the scalp. She cried and I cried and she wouldn’t 
let me pay.


* * * * *

Sarah Russell’s poetry and fiction have been published in Rattle, Misfit Magazine, Third Wednesday, Poetry Breakfast, and many other journals and anthologies. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She has two poetry collections published by Kelsay Books, I lost summer somewhere and Today and Other Seasons. Her novella The Ballerina Swan Lake Mobile Homes Country Club Motel was published by Running Wild Press. She blogs at https://SarahRussellPoetry.net

What I Picked for the Journey

by Sarah Russell


A strong walking stick that fits my grasp. 
Oatmeal raisin cookies.
A few favorite poems.
A heart-shaped pebble for my pocket.

I’ll leave on a day that promises sun 
and breeze and animal-shaped clouds. 
I’ll find wild blueberries and spring water
pure as a child’s wonder.

I’ll pass the hours remembering
forsythia in April, the softness 
of a baby’s skin, campfires, the smell 
of bread fresh from the oven. I’ll sleep 
where the milky way tumbles 
through the night sky and trees whisper 
to the wind.


* * * * *

Sarah Russell’s poetry and fiction have been published in Rattle, Misfit Magazine, Third Wednesday, Poetry Breakfast, and many other journals and anthologies. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She has two poetry collections published by Kelsay Books, I lost summer somewhere and Today and Other Seasons. Her novella The Ballerina Swan Lake Mobile Homes Country Club Motel was published by Running Wild Press. She blogs at https://SarahRussellPoetry.net

Waiting

by Louella Lester


Press 1 if you know the extension of the person to whom you wish to speak. My best friend. My dead father. Maybe a lover. Press 2 if you don’t know the extension number. Press 1 to type in your 4 digit PIN. Press 2 if you don’t have a PIN. Press 1 to type in the account number found in the upper right corner. Of the street. Of my house. Of my face. Press 1 to set up a PIN. Press 1 to answer one of your authorization questions. Press 2 if you have not set up authorization questions. Press 1 to set up a series of authorization questions. Who is the actor who played Logan in Succession? What city were you born in? What is the meaning of life? Press 1 to connect to the front desk. The chair. The door. My co-workers. Press 1 to choose music. Press 1 for jazz. Press 2 for pop. Press 3 for silence. 


* * * * *

Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada, author of Glass Bricks (At Bay Press), a contributing editor at New Flash Fiction Review, and has a story included in Best Microfiction 2024. Her writing appears in a variety of journals/anthologies, including most recently: Roi Faineant, 50-Word Story, the Dribble Drabble Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Gooseberry Pie, Paragraph Planet, Hooghly Review, Bright Flash, Cult. Magazine, and SoFloPoJo.

Quick Change Slow

by Louella Lester


Layla takes off her sweater and settles it on top of her parka, which is squished into the chair between her and the older women sitting poker straight next to it, a cardigan draped neatly over her arm. They smile at one another before turning back, with hope, to face the medical receptionist’s desk. Layla swipes sweat from her forehead, removes her outer T-shirt, and drops it on top of the sweater. A minute later she shivers, pulls it back on, and says, “When does it end?” The older woman pats a hanky across her own brow. “I wouldn’t know.”  


* * * * *

Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada, author of Glass Bricks (At Bay Press), a contributing editor at New Flash Fiction Review, and has a story included in Best Microfiction 2024. Her writing appears in a variety of journals/anthologies, including most recently: Roi Faineant, 50-Word Story, the Dribble Drabble Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Gooseberry Pie, Paragraph Planet, Hooghly Review, Bright Flash, Cult. Magazine, and SoFloPoJo.