Mary Kovaleski Byrnes
​
Матрьошка (Matryoshka) with Negative Space at its Center
Seeds inherit memories from their mother,
scientists say. What we call instinct now
retold as knowledge of how to survive
cold. What did your body tell me?
What did I tell my own children?
Here we are in this season of
departures, of decisions
to stay or go, this door or that.
Where is the memory to wait—to trust
there will be another sunrise,
and this one, warmer—another
baby, and this one, full
term. Doctors told my friend to keep
the faith after her sixth loss.
Once, I knew how to sing
all the verses in Latin. My mother
taught me. And how to foster, over years,
a multiplying plot of raspberries. The
Chopin, an entire Fantasy
Impromptu. Now, when
I pass under the angels
at Transfiguration,
I can no longer
feel their heat—
a week before
my son was
born, there
was a thaw
in January. I
looped the beach
with joyous dogs,
stuck my swollen ankles
in the sea. That night, it plunged
below freezing. The car wouldn’t
start. My mother on the phone—
go to sleep. That baby knows not to come in this cold.
What if I told you everything you needed to be
was there somewhere once, etched like a code into your bones?
​
​
Mary Kovaleski Byrnes is the author of So Long the Sky (Platypus Press). Her work has appeared in Image, Guernica, Meridian, Salamander, Best of the Net, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at Emerson College, where she co-founded the EmersonWRITES program, a free creative writing program for Boston Public School students.