The Incredible Shrinking Brain Poem by Valerie Laws

Excited, she tugs me up to her bedroom of thirty years.
‘Look! There's all this here! ' A sweep of her arm presents
Melamine wardrobes with fancy handles, the swagged
Pink curtains she sewed herself. Back downstairs,
‘Look! ' The hall: plates painted at an evening class
She took to keep her brain alert, ranged on the delft rack.
‘See? It's all gone! But look! ' Upstairs again,
A miracle - her bedroom's reappeared, like
An MFI-bought Brigadoon. The universe in her skull
Is shrinking, big crunching; and true to the predictions
Of physicists, her time is running backwards, rewinding
What she knows and understands. Something she learned
Playing peep-bo with her twin in the scullery kitchen
Is about to vanish, but she holds it for a moment,
Poised between knowing and not knowing.

She's amazed, her bedroom might still exist when
Out of sight; soon, she will unlearn this too. But today,
As her time runs backwards to a singularity, it feels to her Like discovery, and today, I try to share her joy.