Marty McConnell
The Gift
Maybe it was the part in Runaway Bunny
where the mother rabbit grows wings
and becomes part bird to find her offspring
that grew in me a certainty that the disappeared
would always come back, made necessary
or possible the afternoons and overnights
and mornings alone with the bookshelf
and bathtub, not even a cat or plant
for living company. So the day I came home
heel-sore and lipsticked to find the apartment
immaculate, air conditioners pulled
from the October windows, the heavy
coffee table reassembled, and her
gone, what I remembered was less
all the nights my mother sat up
unconvincing a fever or coaxing
my lungs into taking air and more
the first time she wanted me
to hit her – we were naked,
of course – and how I was sure
she’d said it out loud, sure
she’d asked me to do it, until
afterward when she said thank you
and how did you know and I said
babe, I don’t know
and we stayed there for hours
wondering silently about winter.
Marty McConnell lives in Chicago, and received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has recently appeared in A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry; Gulf Coast; Indiana Review; Crab Orchard; Salt Hill Review; Beloit Poetry Journal and is forthcoming in Best American Poetry 2014. Her first full-length collection, “wine for a shotgun,” was published in 2012 by EM Press. www.martyoutloud.com
Return to March 2014 Edition
Maybe it was the part in Runaway Bunny
where the mother rabbit grows wings
and becomes part bird to find her offspring
that grew in me a certainty that the disappeared
would always come back, made necessary
or possible the afternoons and overnights
and mornings alone with the bookshelf
and bathtub, not even a cat or plant
for living company. So the day I came home
heel-sore and lipsticked to find the apartment
immaculate, air conditioners pulled
from the October windows, the heavy
coffee table reassembled, and her
gone, what I remembered was less
all the nights my mother sat up
unconvincing a fever or coaxing
my lungs into taking air and more
the first time she wanted me
to hit her – we were naked,
of course – and how I was sure
she’d said it out loud, sure
she’d asked me to do it, until
afterward when she said thank you
and how did you know and I said
babe, I don’t know
and we stayed there for hours
wondering silently about winter.
Marty McConnell lives in Chicago, and received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has recently appeared in A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry; Gulf Coast; Indiana Review; Crab Orchard; Salt Hill Review; Beloit Poetry Journal and is forthcoming in Best American Poetry 2014. Her first full-length collection, “wine for a shotgun,” was published in 2012 by EM Press. www.martyoutloud.com
Return to March 2014 Edition