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she knows herself, the patterned ladder, / knows the circumvention of the mind

That January day I stood / as if iced in

Throughout the sleep-deprived haze of my early child-rearing years, I wrote very little, if at all—but somewhere deep inside, the longing for poetry remained, dormant but very much alive.

When the door slammed, my sister wrapped her arms around my leg and cried. I eased her down to sit on my lap and rocked her until her shuddering breaths subsided. She poked her finger in my chest and said You-Boo. I nodded and hugged her tight—Yes, only me.

In a normal world, families up and down the country would have had the kids breakfasted and out the door for school. But this isn’t a normal world.

Gail has given Mother Nature a run for her money. Thirty pounds lighter than when she first conceived, she lifts weights on her lunch hour and kick-boxes after work three times a week. She’s had regular blood tests, ultrasounds, uterine surgery, two endometrial biopsies, and six cycles of Clomid.

But it’s one thing to be a human incubator, and another to be a mother, and I just didn’t know if I would love my second son like I loved my first…

I’m making dinner when my teenage son walks into the kitchen. “You’re never going to be a grandmother, you know,” he says, apropos of nothing.

As our Editor-in-Chief, Amanda Jaros, wrote in last year’s letter, “the work of mother writers has never been more important.” We hope you will support us in any way that you are able.

As the November days darken, one bright light is the staff of Literary Mama.

In her debut essay collection, Ona Gritz claims the many facets of her identity through her experiences of motherhood and disability, love and grief, creative collaboration and romantic partnership.