N'em - Jericho Brown

[Larry Robinson]

N'em

They said to say goodnight 
And not goodbye, unplugged
The TV when it rained. They hid
Money in mattresses
So to sleep on decisions.
Some of their children
Were not their children. Some
Of their parents had no birthdates.
They could sweat a cold out
Of you. They'd wake without
An alarm telling them to.
Even the short ones reached
Certain shelves. Even the skinny
Cooked animals too quick
To catch. And I don't care 
How ugly one of them arrived,
That one got married
To somebody fine. They fed 
Families with change and wiped
Their kitchens clean.
Then another century came.
People like me forgot their names.

	- Jericho Brown

	(The colloquialism of the title, which means "and them"—as in "Tell your mama and 'em I said hello—encompasses a host of 		people made familiar by the world of the poem. Most of us have known them: elders and distant ancestors whose way of being 	was rooted in the wisdom of folk knowledge, a generation now all but gone.)

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