Bruised Mother, by Ashley Kirkland

topless in the grey light of the master bath, accompanied

by store-bought seashells and soaps, a painting

of dune grass, remember how we planned to ablute

the suture, running straight down your chest? Clavicle

to abdomen. Remember your breasts? Unrecognizable

things on your body: mottled like stormy skies, tortoise

shells. I never told you how sorry I felt for them, how sad

they looked. I never told you how much I hated

that surgeon and his clean, clean hands that held your heart

(even though he saved you) and shook my father’s

work-worn hands. I never told you how, as you

recovered, I would lay in bed with my hand over my heart

as though there were secrets in its beats: Listen: everyone tries

to slip through someone’s hands. Hold tight. Beat.

Crown Hill 1, by Beverly Rose Joyce

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Ashley Kirkland teaches English in Ohio where she lives with her husband and sons. This is her debut poetry publication.

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Beverly Rose Joyce lives in Brecksville, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, with her husband, Carl, and their two daughters, Mallory and Samantha, along with their two dogs, Shadow and Reggie. She holds a BA in English from Baldwin-Wallace University and a MA in English from Cleveland State University, and she was a public high school English teacher for sixteen years before taking a voluntary respite from the profession to spend more time with her children and to better focus on her writing and photography. Her poetry has been published in Plants & Poetry Journal and in the anthology titled Inner Eye, and her photography is forthcoming in The Closed Eye Open.

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