We are, none of us, ‘either’ mothers or daughters; to our amazement, confusion, and greater complexity, we are both.
—Adrienne Rich
We can fight for reproductive rights, but the broader choice is really hampered in our society by this term mother. I prefer the term caretaker, because there’s all this baggage that goes along with “I’m a mother, I identify as a mother, what kind of mother are you?”
—Dr. Kim Tallbear
(Please click on the “dolls” and use the zoom function to read the poem. A transcript is available in the ALT text.)
Aurora Shimshak hails from the hills and caves of southwest Wisconsin. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MFA in nonfiction from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her writing has appeared in Shenandoah, The Southampton Review, and Poetry Northwest. Raised in a family of educators, she teaches writing to high schoolers, undergraduates, and those incarcerated at Oakhill Correctional Institution. She's at work on a memoir about what it means to miss someone. Find more at aurorashimshak.com. Instagram: @ladyshimshak; Twitter: @ashimshak.
Decamp into ramps of small intestine twists, she says. But driving alone, you’ve always avoided highways—for the fear of breeze shaving crazily at your vehicle’s chemo head, other drivers bullying your sluggishness or the spotlessness of speed guns with km bullets aiming at your windscreen's chest.
(Please click on the “dolls” and use the zoom function to read the poem. A transcript is available in the ALT text.)
