Baby Bird, Mother Bird

Saturday morning and another beautiful day. Have paid the landlord, arranged new living space for us come July 1, discussed move with kids who are okay with it all, found probable good home for Lady for one year, and will be throwing out tons of stuff today which always makes me happy. The clean sweep! New drug Xanax rocks too! Oh yes, and kids health insurance came in the mail yesterday...months of pissed of phone calls have finally paid off. Missy K. will get her teeth finished.

Speaking of the divine Ms. Kate, she kicked butt in the Mother's Day play; funny, self-confident and didn't miss a line. Had other mom's complimenting her afterward. The tea was so lovely, children walked us to their seats where we had placecards and paper flowers. We had tea and cookies and pastries. Kate served me and warned me to be careful because the tea was hot. She was wearing a headband with a bird beak on it. All the kids wrote essays about their mom and Kate said, among other things, that I was an average mom (says her!) and that I was mostly understanding and didn't blame her for things. Average mom got very teary. After Kate's stellar performance as the baby bird, we went out for ice cream. All in all a fantastic day away from Binder.

My Mom Egg reading is coming up where I will be reading "Mary, Mother of God." I am SO excited about this reading and hooking up with a new group of poets. Will be buying a copy of the anthology too. The book is available on Amazon now for all those interested! Here are reading details for any of you who can make it:



The Mom Egg Book Launch Party
themomegg@gmail.com you're invited!




Host: The Mom Egg
Location: KGB Bar
85 East 4th Street, NY, NY
When: Friday, May 18, 5:00pm

Please join us for a very special evening with the Mom-poets,
essayists, fiction writers, and artists of The Mom Egg.
Readings, celebrations, and a cool Daisy Rock guitar raffle!

Raw and real, lively and lustful, The Mom Egg is a lively, eclectic
collection of poetry, prose, and drawings by creative artists who are
also mothers. New moms to grandmothers examine issues from
single-motherhood, dating younger men, separation anxiety, breasts,
caring for older parents, to the changing nuclear family and sex;
intimate moments with Moms from all over North America.



The Mom Egg is the official literary publication of the Mamapalooza
Festival. It is edited by Alana Ruben Free and Marjorie Tesser.


www.myspace.com/themomegg



The Daughter Goes To Camp


In the taxi alone, home from the airport,
I could not believe you were gone. My palm kept
creeping over the smooth plastic
to find your strong meaty little hand and
squeeze it, find your narrow thigh in the
noble ribbing of the corduroy,
straight and regular as anything in nature, to
find the slack cool cheek of a
child in the heat of a summer morning—
nothing, nothing, waves of bawling
hitting me in hot flashes like some
change of life, some boiling wave
rising in me toward your body, toward
where it should have been on the seat, your
brow curved like a cereal bowl, your
eyes dark with massed crystals like the
magnified scales of a butterfly's wing, the
delicate feelers of your limp hair,
floods of blood rising in my face as I
tried to reassemble the hot
gritty molecules in the car, to
make you appear like a holograph
on the back seat, pull you out of nothing
as I once did—but you were really gone,
the cab glossy as a slit caul out of
which you had slipped, the air glittering
electric with escape as it does in the room at a birth.

Sharon Olds