miCRo: Standing Water on the Playground by Rebecca Morton

Assistant Editor Sakinah Hofler: Micros have limited space to ground us and evoke emotion. Rebecca Morton’s gorgeous piece, “Standing Water on the Playground,” does exactly that. In less than three hundred words, Morton beautifully delves into what it means to be a mother and subverts traditional ideas of motherhood. Her use of italics for dialogue, especially toward the end, allows us to read sans interruption and feel the same bombardment of questioning the protagonist feels, as well as the sense of resolution and strength in the mother’s thoughts in the penultimate paragraph. Morton’s use of poetic language carries us through and beyond, showing us why each word counts.

To hear Rebecca read her piece, click below:

Standing Water on the Playground

All around me fallen toddlers scream until adults pick them up. A mom asks, Aren’t you sad about missing her early years? I shake my head. No? she sort of hollers at me. I explain I don’t look at it that way. She twists her mouth into a pale frown. I’d be very, very sad. It is breezeless here, and the woodchips are weird, a sea of landscaping material without any plants. Someone told me foster kids are violent, gerbil/garbage-disposal situations. Someone told me Russian orphans never bond.

It’s not humid, but semi-muggy; kids run hot, and the morning’s strange summer rain is puddled on hard surfaces. The air smells like macerated cheddar crackers. I’ve forgotten sunscreen so it’s time to go. Exiting, my toddler avoids her distraught peers, suspicious of how they’ve beached themselves, suspicious of assumptions about care.

she has your eyes she’s tall is her mom tall define kin how did you choose her how did she arrive you missed morning sickness missed baby weight that’s a blessing missed breastfeeding that’s a shame you can only guess do you try to guess at her history you missed restless sleep a dark line an endless shadow seam down the belly

She was born into water then tacked to shore with a long thread through her thumb. In every roadside ravine stream I’d fish for a heel or something sturdy to wrench her from the silty water. She was barely breathing. She was a water-echo then a silent red cry.

You were in water and I found you then.

Rebecca Morton received an MFA in poetry from Eastern Washington University. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Crab Creek Review, Tupelo Quarterly, DMQ Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Seattle with her wife and children.

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