Interstellar Fingerprints
First published in Variant Lit. Life was: family of five, water balloon battles in the backyard, family dinners answering mother’s daily questions (What made you happy today? What made you sad). My father was Captain…
Some Place Like Smoke Hole
First published by Scrawl Place. In the fall, we go camping; we drive for five hours to get to Smoke Hole, West Virginia, even though there are plenty of campsites around Baltimore, even though there…
Words They Use in Hospitals
First published by Boats Against the Current comfort measures I don’t hate the term as much as I should, or as much as I loathe other phrases that embed in foreheads like initials in concrete.…
Portrait of a Broken Dollhouse
First published by (mac)ro(mic). The dollhouse has a gaping hole on the side facing east, a four-inch hollow overlapping the first and second floors, its splintered edges stretching into the kitchen with the checkered floor…
Self Portrait as a Stay-at-Home Mother (with Llama Llama Red Pajama)
First published at She is Kindred. I am just a mother, holding this household together, unpaid. I am tucker-in of children with monogrammed blankets, snug as a bug, stuffed unicorns with matted fur, chicka chicka…
My Mother’s Hands
First published by Lunch Ticket in the Amuse-Bouche series. When she died, they were buttery smooth and still, and buried under mine, palms pressed flat against dry, cotton hospital sheets. I suffocated them with my…
Dear Baltimore Sinkhole
First published in Dear Poetry Journal The officials circle ‘round you like mothers peering into the well, looking for water or babies fallen in, having slipped on intergenerational poverty or a banana peel, both slick…
The Woodpecker
Read The Woodpecker in the July/August issue of Literary Mama Magazine.
The Boy Down the Street Dies By Suicide
First published by Hobart. In the ninth grade, I learned that you say “hanged” and not “hung” when describing the way the boy down the street died by suicide. My creative writing teacher delivered this…
Finding Strength in Motherhood
First published by She is Kindred. You read many things about motherhood before you enter it, but you never learn about the loneliness. Even if you could read about it, you wouldn’t understand it until…