I get a call from her aide around noon
and she promptly puts my Mom on the ______
Mom calls me sweetie, wants to see me ______
and hopes I'll be able to take her home.
I quote a little Shakespeare, and some Jane
Austen, and that poem about oysters
by Lewis Carroll... but her steel sieve _____
is locked like a nun in silent _____________.
Her word-hoard's gone, or crushed under ___________.
She knows I love her, but not that I'm her ____.
Her phrases start strong, but end in stammers.
At last she gives up, all her speech undone.
With a few stutters, she says good-bye
and I pretend I'm fine — another ______.
About This Series:
My mother has been sinking into dementia (probably related to a concussion in 2013 or 2014, but maybe originating from something else) for about ten years now. I’ve only just recently started writing about it; in retrospect I wish I’d been doing so all along.
You can find my other poems about my mother’s dementia here.
