Voice of Eve ISSUE 10 - APRIL 15, 2019
Contents Abigail Michelini 4 Alana Sawchuk 10 Alice G. Waldert 14 CeAnna Heit 18 Cynthia Sharma 28 Geralyn Pinto 34 Gisel Adame 42 Jean Ryan 48 Bex Saunders (art) 56 Jessica Tucker 62 Kassie Monsen 68
Katie Sue Funk 74 L.E. Grabowski-Cotton 82 Madison Wakamatsu 92 Marie Hanna 100 Nancy Takacs 106 Nikki Byrnside 114 Rachel Essaff Maher 120 Roz Weaver 126
ABIGAIL M
MICHELINI
These Are the Signs God Sends Us
ABIGAIL MICHELINI
They want me to write poems about how it means something that we found a demented Andy doll in the driveway, one that had been laying there for months, its head bashed in. Or the Toy Story 2 ornament dug up from the garden, so long buried we couldn’t tell at first what it was. That’s how I picture him, some combination of atrocities embodied. My friend who died, who had a better chance of winning the lottery seventy-five times, these are the signs god sends us: decapitated trinkets, caked in dirt.
Becoming a Mother
ABIGAIL MICHELINI
The first I saw you part limb from tree mouth filled with splinters eyes all mystery You wore flesh red the color of my mother inside and I lost your ribs leaked Y chromosomes became woman again became born alone it was all cliche and I thought I’d feel worthy whole, patient, and kind not viscerally less yours not dance because I’m my own
Still
ABIGAIL MICHELINI
Does cancer keep eating a body after it stops beating? Because you’re here, still. Not floating in myth; not gone to places unseeable. When I talk about your body I can point to it, the one you carried outside crying, saying soon time would collapse its mouth, and close in on the dark unspeakable.
About Abigail Michelini
Abigail Michelini lives with her husband and son in southern California, where her greatest joys include teaching and writing poetry. Her work can be found in The Best Emerging Poets Series, Topic Journal, and The Anthology of Appalachian Writers, among other publications.
ALANA SA
AWCHUK
Hot Tea for the Tillerman (2018)
ALANA SAWCHUK
What is so #important about Fathers & Sons? A question goes unasked: “But what if I had been your son?” “What if we had been your sons?” And there’s an ancient, acoustic riff— strains of a familiar melody, a patriarchal soundtrack for two men I will never be, but who have lived Infamously. Whose stories I will hear, again again again. Another question: “Have you ever heard that song?” “About Mothers & Daughters?” An answer: They will always value your song more than they will ever value me.
About Alana Sawchuk
Alana Sawchuk is the unbearably anxious product of higher education and regrettable traumatic circumstances. She is a writer and misc. content creator currently residing in the Hudson Valley with her husband and their resplendent feline.
ALICE G. W
WALDERT
A Date
ALICE G. WALDERT
You can stroke every part of me and still not know who I am. You can tell me all the things you’ve done and I won’t tell you, I know they’re lies. You can take me out for a dinner and pour me a glass of wine. And I will let you think you’re showing me a ‘real’ good time. But it will not change the distance between who you are and who I am inside.
About Alice G. Waldert
Alice G. Waldert has a Master of Arts degree and worked for many years as a humanitarian aid worker for the United Nations. While working for the UN she conducted gender studies focusing on women in post-crisis environments. She has had poetry published by the Manhattanville College’s River River Circle and will have two poems featured in the on-line literary arts magazine The Write Place the Write Time. She is currently writing a memoir about life with PTSD affected parents.