This selection, chosen by Guest Editor Maggie Rue Hess, is from Surfacing by Emily Tuszynska (Grayson Books 2024).
Postpartum
I keep coming back,
keep climbing the stairs
to push the button
that lets the slow notes fall,
keep making my face rise
like the moon over your crib,
keep letting my hand
be the weight to teach
your small body stillness.
Like lilies your fists unfurl.
Dusk obscures the corners
of the room, and the walls
expand, the way each day
since you came
has become an ocean,
the sharp pull of your need
through the shapeless hours
the thing that keeps me
from drowning.
Emily Tuszynska’s first collection, Surfacing, received the 2023 Grayson Books Poetry Award and was published in 2024. Her recognitions include a Pushcart Prize special mention, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize, and PRISM International’s Earle Birney award, and her poetry has appeared widely in publications including Mom Egg Review, EcoTheo Review, The Georgia Review, and The Southern Review. She has been awarded a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers Conference and a Sustainable Arts Foundation Parent Residency Fellowship from Mineral School, as well as fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She lives in Virginia and teaches at George Mason University. Find out more at emilytuszynska.com.
Maggie Rue Hess (she/her) is a PhD student living in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her partner and their crusty white dog. She serves as Poetry Co-Editor for Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Connecticut River Review, SWWIM, and other publications; her debut chapbook, The Bones That Map Us, was published by Belle Point Press in 2024. Maggie likes to share baked goods with friends and can be found on Instagram as @maggierue_.
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