All in by Mary Meriam

Pepper Mill

SWWIM Every Day
by Mary Meriam

by Mary Meriam


She’s a grinder, a hill of black pepper,
a deadly spice, no shrubbery in sight.

So my father and mother after the flood
climbed to bed to try for me once more.

We can’t think about the morning screwing,
the noon screwing, the evening screwing,

then the piggy baby pooping and peeing,
or the mountain of ground black pepper

on my mother’s mashed potatoes
and my father’s bacon sandwiches.

Then years of screwing the children,
not screwing like sex, but screwing out of,

not unscrewing the turn of the screw,
but the deeper screwing of the lid on the jar,

shouted damns in the hallway, damn it,
screwing out of the ordinary nursery,

the grinding of toys and dolls into rubble.
Look, you, at the sequence of lessons,

corrupted flesh and spirit, how screwing
is grinding, how little the children knew.

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Mary Meriam co-founded Headmistress Press and edits the Lavender Review: Lesbian Poetry and Art. She is the author of My Girl’s Green Jacket (2018) and The Lillian Trilogy (2015), both from Headmistress Press. Her poems appear recently in Poetry, Prelude, Subtropics, and The Poetry Review. Her new collection, Pools of June, is due out from Exot Books on 2/2/22.

The Earth

SWWIM Every Day
by Mary Meriam

by Mary Meriam

I grabbed my witch’s broom too late to sweep the earth
under the rug. The watchers came to creep the earth.

How could I hide my eyes, and which way turn my feet,
without them watching, hand in grave, to reap the earth?

I put my spell on frothing crowds to pacify
the very rocking waves that ride and leap the earth.

In open sky, I leave the clouds, the jets, the stars,
the everlasting icy wind and weep the earth.

To battlements, I cry. Or just begin to cry.
Where is my girl’s green jacket? She will keep the earth.

Return my trees. Bring back the rocks and rooks, my treasures,
and all streams, swift or slow, the fields, the sheep, the earth.

When my true army carries wounded home, I’ll soothe
and heal the crippled seas, the silver deep, the earth.


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Mary Meriam co-founded Headmistress Press and edits the Lavender Review: Lesbian Poetry and Art. She is the author of My Girl’s Green Jacket (2018) and The Lillian Trilogy (2015), both from Headmistress Press. Poems appear recently in Poetry, Prelude, and Subtropics.