Tom Zimmerman

From Memory for MJZ (1939-2009)

Dad wouldn’t let her work outside the home. She taught me how to cook, arrange food on a plate, enunciate, say “Thank you,” comb my hair. An Elvis fan, she’d dance till dawn, but only if she thought it proper. Smoked two packs a day but didn’t drink until her forties. Spent her last years vodka-soaked. MS deep-fried her mind but not her will. A Charlestown kid, she hated the Midwest and kept her accent pure. She drew. She joked Dad liked her best in red. But she preferred light blue. These details of her life I wrest from memory: a story blurred, and yoked to guilt. But also love. Yes, that’s the word.