poetry on mamazine:

This Morning on Our Island
by Catherine Hodges

Gates of Love
by Paul Hostovsky

Drinking Mom
by Laurie Barton

The Morning After the Oscars
by Laurie Barton

Out of Doors
by Susan Cohen

Chamber Music
by Susan Cohen

Extraction
by Susan Cohen

Stalk
by Kristin Berger

Thoughts on Maternity
by Jackie Cornog

Mr. Goldfish and Vicky
by Judith Baumel


81 - 90 of 126
LOGO LOGO LOGO LOGO LOGO LOGO LOGO LOGO

POETRY

Stalk
by Kristin Berger

Her grip closes full round
the thin quill of bamboo
reaching to shoot apart
from the grove that clusters
along the riverbank – a trill of leaves
that will not shake free,
no matter how much she leans
her new, upright weight
against this green peer,
a wild wrestling
in the wet woods –

like the fresh page found
exposed on the desk, she slashes
a black ballpoint mark
across the words' unfinished face –
make poem, too, mama

she tosses and trains
the stalk to her will,
pricks open the batted sky
to a high blue,
a remnant of rain inking
the uncleaved space
in perfect arcs –

young master, envious control.

Kristin Berger is a mother and writer living in Portland, OR. Her non-fiction has been published in Hip Mama and on mamazine.com. Her poetry has been and will be appearing in The American Poetry Journal and in the forthcoming Awards Issue of the Comstock Review as well as thepedestalmagazine.com in February. She is at work on a collection of poems entitled For the Willing.