dementia

Day 5 ~ Flirting with Isaac

/ A. Gouedard / 5 Comments

My mother, looks vague

as we gather around her bed.

My sons, my grandchildren, my daughter-in-law

trying to make conversation

that doesn’t completely exclude her,

though she’s deaf and has dementia.

We struggle.

I consider her birdlike limbs.

She looks at me deeply puzzled.

She doesn’t know who I am.

Isaac her gentle carer

holds a drink to her lips,

stroking back her hair,

that inadequate cap to her skull.

He’s asking her how she feels.

‘Exactly the same’, she says

‘Exactly the same?’ he asks.

‘Exactly the same’ she says

‘As I was ten minutes ago

When everyone in here asked.’

We all laugh.

I see a diamond glint in her eyes,

a humourous flash of cunning.

She’s enjoying herself.

Ninety-five years old,

Flirting with Isaac

Teasing, smiling, still winning.

© A.Chakir 2023

Todays prompt was to use laughter and the juxtaposition between grief and joy, sorrow and reprieve. 

Gone Back

/ A. Gouedard / Leave a comment

today
for a moment
my mother was here

she told me
we could go back
to the house we all lived in
years before

she knew I’d be glad
there was a shine in her eyes
as she told me

tomorrow
through the doors of dementia
she will have wandered again
leaving me here

I will know
where she’s gone
she will think I am there
with everyone gathered once more

it’s a comfort
to know she got home
but she has left me alone

They

/ A. Gouedard / 1 Comment

in between night and sunrise
in between my right hand and my right
in between my dreaming and my waking
in between lost thoughts
and the next thought I may have
in between the ticking of the clocks
they move between the stairs
between the floorboards
between closed doors and ceiling cracks
between the shadows windows cast
until they become reality at last