The Thief, Alzheimers

​
You sit day after day by the window
watching the tree wave at you.
You say it waves every day,
The cruelty of colors fading,
with memories of weddings and parties,
Your once proud shoulders 
now stooped in despair.
tears once shed, now dry.

Alzheimer’s, a thief of your soul
and mind, has left in its wake
a skeleton with empty eyes
and a waving tree at a cloudy window
and a mom I once knew waving back.





The Secret

​
The sky was thick with snow.
Leaves of ice dripped from pine,
ice shelves on the sills.

Car roofs poked through snow
like ice cream toppings
on a sidewalk sundae.

Your phone rang four times.
I hung up and called back.
It rang five times.
You answered.
I wanted to tell you the news.
You said you wouldn't tell
You'd never tell.
It was a good secret,
a mom/daughter secret,
the type we used to share.
But now was different.
“I want to brag,” you said.
“I want to tell the world.
Why should I know
if I can't tell the world?”

And I hung up so sad.
So mad at myself
for thinking we could talk as we always had,
so mad that confidences would be broken.

And then you called me back
And asked me if it was summer.