Memory.

• Author: Connolly, J.M.
• Position: Poem

It's what we can't see that gets us. You recall your mother crying into pieces of jewelry she holds in her hands, telling you to stay inside, that you can't go out and play-- and you're begging her to go to where your mind forgets, a place behind that left hook, that blindside block-- those boyhood places that still ache when December mornings enter your bones-- that day she took a life, her own, you say, seeing nothing: thirty-two years and all you have is her bruised skin, a dark blue, a dead body and, now, a knee that locks up, teeth that won't line up, a jaw that never closes right. J. M. Connolly is the Master Teacher at the...