With My Mother in Ukraine
by Victoria Markovitz
photography by Claire Packer

Plucked from a tree on your old street,
cherries joined together by their stem.

As a child you hung them
over your ears, now slowly

place the fruit between
your lips, cupping the stem

and palming the pits.
You won’t return again

to the house you fled.
A new family lives there

with your faded furniture and paintings.
They keep the piano tuned.

You kneel, gently
empty your hands

into the tall grass
before we drive

to the hotel.

 

FACES
by Clara Sohn Rehor

Apparently, I’m not happy if I’m smiling. I keep swapping out my profile photo, snapshots like raindrops. I’m not greedy. Just one single beautiful thing. To recognize myself in a photograph I don’t remember. Until then, pretend. Self confidence? Self consciousness? I am having trouble picking just one. It’s not easy. My face doesn’t look a thing like my life.

 

–

 

Victoria Markovitz studied poetry at the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House and currently works as an editor in Washington, D.C. Her poems have been published in Little Patuxent Review and The Ekphrastic Review.

Claire Packer is an Irish born fine art photographer living outside D.C. She has work published in girlgaze; her work captures the beauty in forgotten places, the human body & portraits: www.clairepacker.com.

Clara Sohn Rehor is an emerging writer from Northern California. Her interests lie in understanding human nature and exploring aesthetic
preferences. She holds a BA from Smith College in Studio Art and is a mom of three.