The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Stained: An Anthology of Writing About Menstruation, Curated and Edited by Rachel Neve-Midbar & Jennifer Saunders

This selection, chosen by guest editor Amber Alexander, is from Stained: An Anthology of Writing About Menstruation, curated and edited by Rachel Neve-Midbar & Jennifer Saunders, released by Querencia Press in 2023.

Paloma Wings

by Katherine Hoerth

I wondered why maxi pads have wings,
and what the use of wings are
if all they do is hold you in place.

As a kid, I imagined a flock of them,
of maxi pads,
taking to the sky like startled palomas,

outstretching their white wings
and using them to get as far from me
as possible at that time of the month.

I thought that wings
were only used to fly away—
to touch the sky like Icarus,

who never had to wear a maxi pad.
Who would ever want to be grounded
in such a place, the delta of a river,

to collect the flotsam left behind
from the wreck of another month?
Because when you’re thirteen,

you learn there’s nothing worse
than yourself, a girl,
the red red red of you.

Katherine Hoerth is the author of five poetry collections, including Flare Stacks in Full Bloom (Texas Review Press, 2022). She is the recipient of the 2021 Poetry of the Plains Prize from North Dakota State University Press. Her work has been published in numerous literary magazines including Literary Imagination (Oxford University Press), Valparaiso Review, and Southwestern American Literature. She is an assistant professor at Lamar University and editor of Lamar University Literary Press.

Poet, essayist, and translator Rachel Neve-Midbar‘s collection Salaam of Birds (Tebot Bach, 2020) was chosen by Dorothy Barresi for the Patricia Bibby First Book Prize. She is also the author of the chapbook What the Light Reveals (Tebot Bach, 2014), winner of The Clockwork Prize. Rachel’s work has appeared in journals such as Blackbird, Prairie Schooner, Grist, and The Georgia Review as well as other publications and anthologies. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California where her research concerns menstruation in contemporary poetry.

Jennifer Saunders is the author of Self-Portrait with Housewife (Tebot Bach, 2019), winner of the 2017 Clockwise Chapbook Competition. Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Glass, Spillway, The Shallow Ends, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere, and has earned nominations for Best of the Net, The Pushcart Prize, and the Orison Anthology. Jennifer holds an MFA from Pacific University, and lives in German-speaking Switzerland.

Amber Alexander, who publishes creative work as e. holloway, is a poet based in Ohio. They currently work in higher education and as an Assistant Editor for Best Of The Net within Sundress Publications. Alexander is a former Editorial Intern for Sundress Publications, former Editorial Board Member for Cornfield Review, and was a Sundress Academy for The Arts Writing Resident in 2023. Their work has been published by Cornfield Review and earned multiple awards during undergrad at The Ohio State University.