Tag: women

Two Poems by Ann Kammerer

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Little Veils

When we were little,
me and Janie
wore veils to mass—
white ones,
lacy ones,
triangular ones
that Mom
pinned in place
with thin metal clips
so they’d stay put
and wouldn’t slip
from our fine yellow hair.

We wore percale dresses, too—
the same one every Sunday,
matching ones from Sears
with tiny white flowers,
a Peter Pan collar,
and a deep blue sash
with a fake satin sheen.

Mom said to hurry
so I helped Janie dress.
She said Dad got mad
when we dawdled
and made him late
to church.
When we were done—
our sashes bow-tied
and our white Mary Janes
all buckled and shined—
we went to find Mom
as she smoked
in the bathroom,
a hairbrush, bobby pins,
and veils on the sink.

“About time.”
She took a last puff
and tossed her Viceroy
into the toilet,
making it singe.
“Janie first.”

Janie backed away.
Mom grabbed her arm
and pushed her down
on the edge of the tub.

“Good little girls
do what they’re told
Hold still.”

Mom laid the veil
over a knot of snarls,
wedging bobby pins
over and under
each side.

“There,” she said.
“All done.”

Janie sobbed.
I wiped her face
with toilet paper.
Mom stood behind me,
pinning down my veil,
poking my scalp,
telling me to be quiet
when I said it hurt.

“There,” she said.
“You’re done, too.”

She touched my cheek,
then Janie’s,
saying it was OK now.
Fiddling with a loose button
on her faded rose dress,
she draped a black veil
over her wavy brown hair,
smoothing the lacy ends
over her shoulders.

“See,” she said.
“I have to wear one, too,
just like you.”

Mom put on lipstick
and feathered on rouge.
She dabbed tan make-up
on the deep gray circles
beneath her eyes,
then over the
green-purple bruises
on her wrists—
the ones she got when Dad
slammed down his drink
and grabbed her,
pushing her
against the wall.

“We were just
dancing,” she had said later
when she tucked us in bed,
her hair falling over her eyes
as she kissed us goodnight.
“He does that sometimes.
With me. After he has
a bad day at work.”

*

Communion

We always sat
in the same order
in the same pew
at the same mass
at St. Lucy’s.

Dad slid in first,
Mom second,
holding Janie’s hand.
I got in next,
my bare legs sticking
to the unvarnished pew.
My big brother Freddie
sat beside me and
my other brother Charlie
sat at the end,
his head swiveling
as he looked for Theresa,
the Italian girl whose dad
owned Armando’s,
Dad’s favorite bar.

“Quit fidgeting.”
Mom poked me
as I fiddled with my veil
and clicked the beaded latch
on my vinyl purse.
Janie wiggled, too,
kicking the back of the pew.
Dad winced and bent over,
one hand on his stomach,
the other pressed
to his forehead.

“He doesn’t
feel good,” Mom sighed.
“I don’t either.”

Her breath smelled
fruity and sour,
just like it had last night
when she tucked
me and Janie in bed.

“We should’ve skipped
mass,” she said.
“Your dad.
He’s in no condition.”

Mom rubbed her eyes
and licked her dry lips.
The pipe organ echoed
as a boy in a white robe
carried a jeweled crucifix
down the center aisle.
Two boys followed
clutching lit candles.
A third swung
an ornate brass bowl
on a chain,
spewing spicy smoke.
The priest came last,
draped in brilliant sateen,
his hands clasped
atop the copper filagree
embroidered on his robe.

Sun poured through
the stained-glass windows
as the boys reached the altar
and placed the cross
and candles beside
a small, pearled tabernacle
with a golden dome.
The priest stepped up
and raised his arms.
We all stood
in prayer.

“Stand up.”
Mom kicked Dad
in the shin,
but he didn’t move,
mumbling we’d all
be sitting back down
anyway.

“See.”
He muttered prayers
as we all sat and stood
then sat again,
just like he said.
Opening our hymnals,
we sang and prayed
to a father and son
and holy ghost,
then knelt
to bow our heads.

The priest chanted.
The altar boys rang bells.
People rose
from their pews
to walk single file
and kneel at a railing
by the altar.
Folding their hands
they closed their eyes
and opened their mouths,
the priest placing wafers
on their tongues
before they got up
and filed back
to their seats.

“It’s our turn now, right?”
Freddie nudged Charlie.

“Yeah, yeah,” Charlie said.

They stumbled out,
webbing their hands
beneath their chins.

“Wait for me,” I said.
“I want a cookie, too.”

When I started to scooch,
Mom grabbed my sash,
tugging me back.

“No,” she said.
“You can’t go.”

She said I was
too little,
that Janie was
too little, too,
that the boys
were the only ones
who could go
to communion
since she and Dad
had been bad
and missed confession.

“We’ll go next Sunday,” she said,
“after we say a few
Hail Marys and Our Fathers
to get rid of our sins.”

*

Ann Kammerer lives near Chicago, and is from Michigan. Her short fiction and poetry is typically set in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, and examines the tensions and ideals of people living in the rustbelt. She has published fiction and poetry in literary magazines and anthologies, and has five poetry collections through independent small presses. You can find her recent or upcoming work in Fictive Dream, ONE ART, Chiron Review, The Broken Spine, 10 by 10 Flash, Open Arts Forum, Cold Caller Magazine, Cajun Mutt Press, and at annkammerer.com

Two Poems by Miriam Calleja

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Women who switch roles

Let’s say that for a change
you are the island
and I’m the deep sea
snatching your reefs

And let’s say I am the bear
You, the helpless tourist
mauled with camera still rolling

And let’s say, for once,
I’m the spectator
and that you’re spinning your wheels
going nowhere

Why, you should’ve just asked!
If it’s all the same to you,
let’s do it that way this time.

* 

Ars Poetica for when you don’t recognize yourself
After The Castle by Jorge Méndez Blake

The computer is making sure it’s you.
Your phone won’t unlock;
fingerprints scrubbed out from
hugging yourself all night. You ask me
whether everybody else is having this life,
whether it needs to be so brambly.
I self-sabotage, amateur another
bowl of my anxiety.
The texts we choose
to consume, to translate,
dark our telltales.
There is a squeak in the wheel,
a pea under a pile of mattresses,
a book that rewrites the wall.
Some of us live in two
languages, dreams, tongues,
thoughts split. Another year,
I will speak to you in Italian,
you say yes, yes, let’s speak.
Let’s loosen our tongues and
our waistbands. Let’s stop
giving a shit. In one moment
I brick the balance.
In the next, I disrupt the book
and slip the rules.

*

Miriam Calleja is a Pushcart-nominated poet, writer, workshop leader, artist, and translator. Her work has appeared in platform review, Odyssey, Taos Journal, plume, Modern Poetry in Translation, humana obscura, and elsewhere. She has published 2 full collections and several chapbooks and collaborations. Her latest chapbook is titled Come Closer, I Don’t Mind the Silence (BottleCap Press, 2023). Her first translated work was published in 2025 and is titled Variations on Silence (Nadia Mifsud, PoetryWala). Miriam is from Malta and lives in Birmingham, Alabama. She is co-editor at Brick Road Poetry Press and table // FEAST. Read more on miriamcalleja.com.

Women by Ashley Kirkland

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Women
My friend and I are talking (we talk most mornings,
it’s one of those things that keeps us going) &
she’s telling me about her boss, how she makes her
feel like a small girl in trouble & yet her boss compares
women to the sun: constant, strong. My friend tells me she’s neither,
maybe she’s conflating women and mothers, she says, & I think
about the link between youth & shame, how the connection follows
us into adulthood, how even now I feel so small when I feel
shame. My friend says she’s more like a lake because she has boundaries
& depth. An ocean would be too big, she says. I don’t tell her,
but I think she could be an ocean if she wanted; a hurricane tearing
through the joint. I’m a poet so I think of the moon– bright & ever-
changing, guiding, pulling. She takes on all of the metaphors
then, and says, it’s funny, you know, that we have this urge to compare
women to part of nature when we are nature. She tells me about women
in the Bible, the word ezer, how the phrasing the first time it appears
is stronger than the male translators ever gave us credit for, which, I think,
is what we’ve always fought. Metaphors that underestimate us, make us
larger than life. Myth. The sun, the lake, the moon, when we’ve really
only ever been ourselves, which is to say, everything all at once.
*
Ashley Kirkland writes in Ohio where she lives with her husband and sons. Her work can be found in Cordella Press, Boats Against the Current, The Citron Review, Naugatuck River Review, HAD, Major7thMagazine, among others. Her chapbook, BRUISED MOTHER, is available from Boats Against the Current. She is a poetry editor for 3Elements Literary Review. You can find her at lashleykirkland.bsky.social and lashleykirklandwriter on Instagram.

Every Woman by E.C. Gannon

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Every Woman

I deserve to have someone paint a nude portrait
of me, I really do. I deserve to disrobe in someone’s
studio, to lie on a vintage couch with my tattooed
arm draped limply over my head. I deserve to have
someone study the contour of my neck, the lopsided
proportions of my tits, the right pushed upward
by the armrest, the extra cartilage beneath my ribs.
I deserve to have someone run their hand down
my torso to fully understand the way it rises until
the peak of my child-bearing hips. I deserve to have
someone objectively study the curls of my pubic hair,
the constellation of freckles on my inner thigh.
I deserve to have someone recognize the artistry
of this bare body, the nicks on my calves, the
bruises on my forearms, the muscle in my thighs.

*

E.C. Gannon’s work has appeared in Peatsmoke Journal, Assignment Magazine, SoFloPoJo, Olit, and elsewhere. A New England native, she holds a degree in creative writing and political science from Florida State University.