If all I have is this shield I am a bad mother. I am constantly inside of this. I am building the brick house with my friend Janelle we can talk. I am deconstructing it. I am crying about it. I am impulsive and things could get a little messy. Teach this to the little ones still swinging at the playground. I need to put you to bed. I need a schedule. I need all the help I can get. I need the what. I am especially grateful to this moment. I am holding this as a pearl. I am not in the pearl. I’m in the geode waiting to take light. I am the light. If all I have is this. I am a mother. Constantly lying about this. Where in the genes is this taking place. Give me my hand. Hold it with me down the street the grandmother asks where is her home she says, I thought it was right here.
Emily Koehn
Home
Emily Koehn’s poems are forthcoming or have recently appeared in Fence, Crazyhorse, Cincinnati Review, Vinyl, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where she works as a site coordinator for Poetry Inside Out, a poetry and translation program in the public schools.
MORE POEMS
-
southern gothic
Brett Shaw
-
THE MAYOR
Raye Hendrix
-
AMERICANA
Miriam Alex
-
Torah Study
Ava Nathaniel Winter
-
Midrash
Ava Nathaniel Winter
-
When I Was a Wind Chime
Suzanne Highland
-
On Stone Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas
Elizabeth Muscari
-
THE PREACHER’S KID
Caleb A.P. Parker
-
NORTHERN LANDSCAPE
Caroline Stevens
-
Sandwich Days
Lloyd Wallace
-
going down singing
Chen Chen
-
Ode to the Gull
Jona Colson
-
The Natural World
Jess Smith
-
2nd Declension Nouns, Lesson 2: Θάνατoς
Jay Aelick
-
33 Ways to Measure an Overdose
Kirsten Mayse
-
space cowboy ghazal or anthem or creation myth
Madeline Augusta Turner
-
Crybaby Cowboy
Chen Chen
-
DISNEY SHOWS ME DRONE FOOTAGE: SHARK WEEK
Faith Henley Padgett
-
DISNEY SHOWS ME DRONE FOOTAGE: NIGHTMARE
Faith Henley Padgett
-
SHOPPING WITHOUT EARPHONES
Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow