Grandmother stands on the porch wearing only her slip, handbag looped over her arm. She tells us the minister has come by, she’s sure he wants to have sex with her. We amble into the house, Mother goes straight for the kitchen. I sit with grandmother in the living room stacked high with Better Homes […]
Elizabeth Mercurio
Elizabeth Mercurio is the author of the chapbooks Doll and Words in a Night Jar. Her work has appeared in Lily Poetry Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, Vox Populi, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet and was named a finalist in the Cordella Press Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize and the Two Sylvias Press Wilder Poetry Prize. You can find her at: https://www.elizabethmercurio.com/
Grief Brushes in a New Year
Emptiness grabs hold of me makes the coffee bitter, the jam less sweet. Daddy, your shirts are in the closet. For months I could not hug you, to protect you from the virus. You died anyway. I want to be a girl again — perched at the top of the stairs I’d wait for you […]