Mom got out of bed, without assistance
And apparently sat down on the floor —
or maybe she fell? Without resistance,
the ground caught her; the nurse couldn’t say more,
except that the aide was in the bathroom
and “taking care of her personal needs.”
I wonder at the risk of coming doom,
the falls, and the cuts, the bruises, the bleeds,
the tumbles and the comas and the breaks,
the weight loss and the loss of appetite
the loss of speech and the trembles and shakes,
as she sleeps most days and rambles each night.
Nothing I do will keep her from dying—
but fast? Or slow? Either way I’m lying.
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.
