i have never been a mother
but today i have given birth to a hundred mosquitos
from the belly of the firepit i’d left forgotten
in the backyard, letting it swell and rust
with stagnant summer stormwater
become bloated with unseen larvae
till i knocked it over while watering the plants
i keep buying from the nursery and murdering,
releasing these insects, these children, into the air,
where they descended upon me, angry
the mosquitos
Emily Ramser is a poet and sometimes a teacher; though her time teaching is coming to an end after Christian Nationalists decided queer people shouldn’t teach in Texas anymore and Emily accidentally ended up one of the stars of the NBC podcast Grapevine. Based out of Denton, Texas, Emily collaborates and co-creates with Spiderweb Salon as the editor of their zine WHAT NOW? and one of their regular performers. In her spare time, she works on documenting the ever-evolving history of blackout and found poetry at https://www.thehistoryofblackoutpoetry.org/.