(Part I)
Lost in the neighborhood grocery store,
adoring husband of 35 years only ten feet away,
but not the five she required
to recognize her place in the world.
Her panic rising, next to her
beloved daughter no longer
familiar point of reference,
now one of the swarming mass of humanity
who terrorizes with disturbing strangeness.
(Part II)
Have you ever seen the hole a lit cigarette makes when pressed to unfolded rolling paper? Just at first, it is the exact size of the round embered tip. Then it grows, orange hair-line trim expanding the circumference unevenly, persistently, burning away the once-wood pulp, once-virgin forest, forever.
Lack of word retrieval, inability to recall unimportant facts. Then important facts, difficulty following multi-step tasks, like baking her fabled pound cake. Then as simple as boiling water or remembering that one must turn off the stove burner after one turns it on. Refined rolling paper, wood pulp, virgin forest: clear-cut, slash and burn, it does not matter.
(Part III)
No discernible intellect to sculpt
her animal essence, she had become
a spare nest of primitive emotion.
Hollowed, howling, haunted.
Ragged, roughened, ravaged.
Unrecognizing, unrecognizable.
No beauty transcending cruelty.
No reassurance to offer
nor metaphor to distill.
Just the harsh, relentless fact
that her body remained
too many years in ruthless bed.
is
all.
These pitiful words
are all I have
to offer.
So tiny
that infinite amounts
(nothing)
fit in the palm of my hand.
Open or closed,
it does not matter.
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