“A friend texts to ask for ways to keep
her four-month-old occupied
during “tummy time”—a sweet name for the exercise
that will prevent her child from wearing
a helmet while the now-doughy skull forms:
an assortment of dry beans in a plastic bag”
Enjoy this audio recording of “motherAnxiety” by Katherine Gaffney from Vol. 34:2 of CALYX Journal! Buy your copy here!
Katherine Gaffney completed her MFA at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and is working on her PhD at University of Southern Mississippi. Her work has been published in jubilat, Meridian, and elsewhere. Her full-length collection, Fool in a Blue House, won the 2022 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry and was published in 2023. She lives and teaches in Champaign, IL.