~Sasha R. God was in love when He made me. His eyes were focused on something in the distance when His hands slid across clay to form my face. He stared for a long time in that direction, His warm fingers at rest against my rough, wet cheeks. As He pushed at the clay, I [...]

~T. R. I hurried into a religious bookstore one day anxious to pick up a book previously ordered.  Old-time church hymns played on overhead speakers.  As I waited in line a nearby magazine caught my eye, the caption reading, “Woman of the Year.” My eyes traveling upwards saw a blond woman with long softly curled [...]

~Makisha Lawrence Half- truths marinated in mango juices traipse slowly down the back of an arm The eager tongue of naiveté sweeps them onto the palate where taste buds are obliged to slowly absorb contradictions of: You just a little on the chubby side And Baby here, have some more macaroni ‘n’ cheese And A [...]

~Dolores V. I am the daughter of the fifth sun Waiting for the promised one Ven a mi I am the everlasting weeping willow tree Resembling your abuela I bear the infinite rings of wisdom Escucha me I am the mother of this earth And of your soul Tu madre Replenishing the hole A brisk [...]

~Jennifer A. I am the mother of my poetry for each new poem is a labor of love each one is conceived and woven together in the womb of my soul each one flutters and kicks inside me dancing into being and when each one is pushed forth into life there is pain there is [...]

~The Captain @ Up She Rises It’s hard to explain what I mean when I say that I don’t believe in “God” anymore, so I don’t really bring it up.  Some people who love me, they get sad. It seems that what they hear is loss and despair–fearfully, desperately I claw my way through the [...]

~jennifer a. if the womb of this belly never bears fruit am I still a woman? what about all the poetry that has been conceived in the womb of my soul? if these loins never labor forth a child am I still a woman? what about all the dreams that have labored out of the loins [...]

–jennifer a. I parked behind a flashy car out of which a woman stepped I noticed her license plate around which these words proclaimed: I’M BAD…because the men like it and I thought about all the decades and all the centuries throughout all of history during which womyn have been taught to bend and to [...]