Muscle Memories of Love and Disaster

By: Tim Mayo

Published by Bainbridge Island Press, 2026-03-31

Muscle Memories of Love and Disaster explores the arc of a life shaped by loss and renewed by love. The poems intertwine to explore grief from the loss of loved ones (a lover, a daughter and close friends), early memories of growing up in an immigrant foster home, later memories of working in a mental hospital, the poet's own recovery from addiction, the emotional and spiritual impact of a near death and life-changing accident with its lasting, crippling effects, and an acceptance of a life nearing its own chronological end. Although there is a darkness in these poems, they belie the empathy and subtle humor in the poems and the joy of finding love in later life after so much loss.