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Poetry Archive
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by Toni Thomas | ns 71-72
My Mother's Body Turns Traitor on Her
til she doesn’t recognize herself anymore
curtains the bathroom mirror
scissors herself out of family photograph albums.
What will she do with the remainder
of her life now that the
hourglass of curves have turned
into grapefruits of discontent?
Some might say she has
fudge marbled her life away
given into dissolution, wrinkles
lacks self-respect.
How can I tell you about loss
the way it eats heathen street shoes
the way loneliness dwarfs the tongue
and courage can be a secret pact that keeps
a family stick pinned together
on heavy knees
the way time sometimes slays the voice
sets up a graveyard we start
to live in.
Over time my mother's body turned
traitor on her.
It was my childhood.
A sadness I watched with a rapt tongue.
But in the sum of a life
there are more terrible
irrevocable losses
than this one.
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ns 71-72 | Winter/Spring 2009
 Our precarious times seem a good moment for critics to think about what they believe and why they do criticism. The new issue of minnesota review features nineteen essays by young, old, and in-between critics about what they do and where they think criticism should go.
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