Michael Mark

Even when they danced, Dad couldn't keep her in his arms. She'd spin off, leave him to fade back into the circle of others, clapping, hooting. Days when the pond would freeze, mothers took their children's hands and worried them around in slow circles. Mom raced in uncharitable loops past me and my brother like we weren't hers. Same way she didn't see my report card Fs as Fs. She'd take the matching color pen and glide the ballpoint so it looked like the B was always there. You could ask how she convinced the butcher his scale was wrong, how she'd roll her cart away with three-eighths of a pound of corned beef, paying for only a quarter – fat trimmed, the way dad liked, but she'd skim that question like she did all surfaces, even air. Now she's given her own memory the slip. Doctors say there's no reaching her.