Cincinnati Review

See more poems from Issue 17.1 by purchasing a copy in our online store. Digital copies only $5.

See more poems from Issue 17.1 by purchasing a copy in our online store. Digital copies only $5.

See more poems from Issue 17.1 by purchasing a copy in our online store. Digital copies only $5.

Someone stops over unannounced like the old days,so I pop open that bottle of Sancerre I’ve been saving.Talk turns to carp that reached the roadwayafter Thursday’s three inches of rain, how some saidInvasive, let them die, others said Naturalized,let them live, someone asked for a net and                                                            others saidthey’d catch them with their hands. I …

I’d heard plenty about how a mother’s devotion to her kids is primal. I got it—I could imagine that sort of wild, beyond-the-brain love, the kind of protectiveness that can sprout claws and incisors. I expected having a child to change my priorities, my routines, my capacity for tenderness and rage. I didn’t expect it …