Remembering Dementia
Listen, woolly afternoon, you’ve
wound around our fingers once
wound around our fingers once
too often. I’ve tried to unravel her
strands of words, but her stories rarely verge
strands of words, but her stories rarely verge
on solvable, instead mingling
timelines, places and languages
timelines, places and languages
in some beautiful
but useless
but useless
confusion.
*
I try to follow one track
of story, only to discover
of story, only to discover
knitting or biscuits – and she never knitted
though they’d tell her
though they’d tell her
it befit her; a trap
for the elderly she’d
for the elderly she’d
eagerly evaded.
*
Well. When she’s quicker and
looser I may try
looser I may try
and ask her,
but it’s all tangled now,
but it’s all tangled now,
she says of her head,
before her tongue is tied.
before her tongue is tied.
