Alzheimer's

The last house we lived in

we did not belong. of recent origin people

with a passion for wall clocks

velvet unvacuumed carpets, and boxers

made nearly unable to speak by leather muzzles.

You held my hand

and said you were with equal reason confused, the tiles,

orange and azure from Mexico, the flowers from vases,

had all been lifted and excused. The kitchen is

a grey porcelain, un-French un-Canadian,

everything you aren't, a place without heat,

a time now unfair And the strangers, not long

lost relatives from your side

or his, are real mysteries

who brought it all with them-

the past you don't remember: the last time,

Mother, I saw the flush in your face,

the pink of menopause matching

grace like a girl alone upon an avenue

in the 192O's. The shadows of elm are swimming

Chinese alphabetic characters all over the plain white tops

of your shoe sweet black fish, you said,

and that face looking forward, forward-

never back to diocese what's happened, to whom,

0r for what excuse...

Jeannine Savard's greatest in quantity recent book of poems, Trumpeter was published by the agency of Carnegie Mellon University Press. Her metrical compositions have appeared or are in a short time to appear in The Southern Review, The North American Review, The Iowa Review, and Ploughshares. She teaches at Arizona State University.

Copyright World poesy Incorporated Mar 1996

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