Love Sonnet

By Meghan Sterling

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Something about the way a mother 
can keep herself from falling. Having 
children ruins your life, my mother raised
her glass and toasted after my baby shower. 
Something about the way the river turns, its 
sunken blue like a stone in place of a doll’s eye. 
Something about the myth of a mother’s love. 
Love is not an automatic thing, my mother said. 
What was it that ground us down to dirt? Something 
about my head tilting up in the dark, cracking my 
mother’s nose with my chin. My lips are lucky 
to find her cheek, still smooth, still scented with leaves. 
Something about the turned back. Nothing drives 
love away like loving too much, my mother said

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Meghan Sterling (she/her) is a bi/queer writer whose work is published in Los Angeles Review, Colorado Review, Rhino Poetry, Hunger Mountain, and many journals. Self-Portrait with Ghosts of the Diaspora (Harbor Editions) and View from a Borrowed Field (Lily Poetry Review’s Paul Nemser Book Prize) came out in 2023. Her next collection, You Are Here to Break Apart (Lily Poetry Review Press), is forthcoming in 2025. Read her work at meghansterling.com.

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• 12/12 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Nicole Cooley + local writer Caroline Cabrera / The Gallery at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free

• One workshop remains in our Workshop Series--SWWIM Lessons: From Prompt to Placement: “Surfing Submittable with Jen Karetnick – Keeping your head above water in the poetry submissions process” on 12/10 (register here). Price: $80/workshop. Time: 7:00–9:00 PM (EST). Where: Zoom.

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