You look
lost
all at sea
as your words
come unmoored
& drift away
from what you were trying to say.
You used to laugh:
“I can’t even spell Alzheimer’s
never mind
have it! ”
Now you
are
it.
And even this conversation lies forgotten
like a fossil.
So much of your thought
exists only in my head.
The more you forget
...I remember.
Words
escape your hands
like a kite
snatched to the skies
you crying
as they fly away.
“Chasing clouds! ”
as you say
in a lucid moment.
The words you were
carrying to me
so carefully
spill
from your hands
you try to
attach
meaning
to their memory
as they bob
before you
like apples
in a bowel
blindfolded
trying to catch them
in one bite
one Halloween
so long ago it seems
that was only
last night.
“Shit...shit...shit! ”
you moan to your self.
This the only
word
you can lay your hands on
you who never swore.
I second
guess you
most of the time
&
most of the time
I’m
right.
Woosh you
off your feet
& carry you
to what you were going to say.
“You want to sit...
...under the tree? ”
“Yes...down...sit tree! ”
You telegraphed
from somewhere
inside
yourself
I get
used to your telegraphese!
We sit & chat
I all the time
reminding you what
it was
you were
going to say
when you can’t say it!
We get by
in this way
as each day
the words forget you.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
An overwhelming extraordinary humanity - you have a diagnosis, too - an incurable humanity in heart, you poor Donall...