Thursday Mar 28

Mohn SlateEmily Emily Mohn-Slate is the author of Feed, co-winner of the Keystone Chapbook Prize, forthcoming from Seven Kitchens Press (2019). Her poems and essays can be found in New Ohio Review, At Length, The Adroit Journal, Indiana Review, and elsewhere. Her full-length manuscript, The Falls, was a finalist for the 2018 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize from Kent State University Press, and the 2016 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize from University of Pittsburgh Press. She teaches creative writing at Chatham University and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
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Target Sonnet
 
My daughter screams More! More! as she lies on
Target’s greasy floor making a snow angel, fluorescent
lights glaring on her outstretched arms. On the TV,
the president says, I will build a great, great wall,
 
and another mother huffs, steers her cart around
the small star of my child’s body. I try for eye contact, 
for solidarity.      Nope.     She has places to be,
her eyes locked on her own placid child, pushing

away from my grubby, beaming daughter and me,
who slept three hours last night, who needs
a warm nod but gets only the wall of her back.
And I have been her, yes, steering around someone
 
who only needs me to slow down, to loosen
the tight fist of my tired heart.
 

 
Aubade with Teether

                                                            Keys water phone teether
 
                                                                        Keys water phone jacket
 
Sleep fogs the window         pats the car seat
 
                                                                        Keys water phone teether
 
                                                Click the baby’s seat belt   Click the baby’s seat belt
 
                                                                                    Keys water phone teether
 
Sleep reaches for you              it would be so nice to—    
 
                                                                                               Snacks water teether—
 
                                                                        1 mile       1 mile     then left
 
                                                                                                Water   snacks   jackets
 
Sleep whispers your name     that sly rasp in his voice
 
                                                                                                Snacks     jackets—
 
                                                            Exit 65A     Sharp right—
 
                                                                        Exit 65A         Exit 65     A
 
Sleep’s grip loosens your back
                                                            Kids watching their show   Kids happy
 
                                                Eyes open                    focus             focus—
 
                                                                                               
Sleep licks your ear
 
                                                                                    (left turn) —
 
 
                                                                                                            (left —)
 
 
 
                                                                                                            (left    

 
Lightness
 
The feeling of being almost
free   like sitting at a metal desk
a few minutes before summer:
 
the last feeding of the day
her going quiet   letting go my nipple
so tired but weightless
 
now I carry only my own body
the husk of the me that was