Janice Lynch Schuster

She has a window of memories.
Some days, it slams shut.
She cannot open the damn idea
On the edge of awareness.
It’s stuck.
The constancy of daylight fools her
Who was no man’s fool.  Now the darkness
Settles in, her own thoughts are shadows.
Snow lifts on the horizon.

If you are fifty, she tells me,
Then I have become an old woman.
I was there the night you were born.
No one remembers seeing me
But I remember you, just arrived,
Last week, or last year. How did we
Find our way from there to here?

Fifteen great-grandchildren
Whose names flutter like sleepy bats
In the loft of her thoughts.
No way to tell them apart.

When she tells me there are giraffes
In her yard, I know not to disagree.
I can see them, too, the wondrous light
Of their long necks, huge eyes lifted
To what’s left of the sun.
If Grandmom says giraffes have drifted
From the snow,
I ask how many, and what they eat.
Geography is a thing of the past.

Her world grows fainter every day
No matter how she adjusts
Her hearing aids.
Who am I to question any song
That comes to mind? My job
Is to sing along.

 

Key words: dementia, senility, Alaska, giraffes