I’m up with the bakers, rolling soft sugared dough.
I’m up with the farmers, pulling warm milk into tin buckets.
I’m up with the monks, whispering intercessions in sacred solitude.
Your little rolls are sweeter, though, and between the sleepy gulps, your hushed nonsensical words are holier than any prayer.
Alexandra is a new mom who has grown to enjoy her 3 AM tete-a-tete.
After a rush to exfoliate and color away years of children and scour closets for outfits inappropriate for soccer practice, they crash into a Vegas hotel room, where, in a flash of giddy consensus, they dump their over-stuffed bags and non-sensible shoes, order room service, draw blackout curtains, and sleep.
Robin LaVoie is presently sweating in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. She writes personal essay and creative nonfiction on her Substack publication, It’s Like This, and her work has appeared in print and online, including Monday Coffee and Other Stories of Mothering Children with Special Needs (Inwords Press, 2013), Pentimento Magazine, BarBar, and NonBinary Review.
On a dark, lonely road between Tehachapi and Mojave,
In the back seat, he hovered, speaking gently, soothing.
She focused on the dome light, first-time nervous.
When finished, she named the wee babe after the man who delivered him: Trooper Smith.
On a dark, lonely road between Tehachapi and Mojave.
Daniel Quillen retired and lives in Castle Rock, Colorado with his wife. They enjoy visiting their seventeen grandchildren, most of which are spread coast-to-coast.
Cruelly, the mirror mocks me, shows me what I’ve wanted for so long.
A sideways glance reveals my swollen stomach,
Neatly rounded, bloated from the drugs,
Curving out as though I’m six months pregnant.
Empty, stitched and sore when all I dreamt of was a child.
Realistically, that’s impossible now.
Jo Withers writes micros, flash, and shorts from her home in South Australia. Recent fiction can be found in Milk Candy Review, Ellipsis Zine and Lunate.
Wake, feed, burp, change.
She sleeps again, small breaths warming my neck.
Wake, feed, burp, change.
She cries; loud and angry wails.
Wake, feed, burp, change.
We go out, finally, and I’m always surprised that the world carries on, as if to mock the broken record of our banal existence.
Laura Besley writes short fiction in the precious moments that her children are asleep. Her fiction has appeared online, in print and in various anthologies. She tweets at @laurabesley.
Belly pushed forward, one hand at my back, the other slowly patting circles over my protruding stomach. I study my reflection from the side and front, imagining something inside. But there’s nothing there. Only the seed of doubt that has taken root and started to grow: there may never be.
Margaret is an amateur writer, but her mother thinks she’s WONDERFUL. She resides in Indianapolis.
Memories arise as she gradually awakens from her medical stupor. Behind her closed eyelids, she remembers the ambulance, doctors, and then the rush into C-section surgery.
Did her sweet baby–no wait, babies–make it?
She peeks open her hazel eyes to find two congratulatory balloons. One pink. One blue.
Jewel is a stay at home mother who spends her days chasing after her spunky two year old, and her free time writing and entering contests on sites such as Needle in the Hay.