dementia – Elizabeth Oakley Weaver

Church Visits

CHURCH VISITS

We brought you this poinsettia—
would you like it in your room?
Your drawl rich as poppies
introduces you and your children to my mom
who smiles, tries to remember if she knows you,
dementia shredding whole stands of friends each night.

Where would you like me to put it?
No directive in your mist of questions,
knowing Alzheimer’s has already clear-cut her choices.
You sit beside Mom’s bed and talk
with a comfort never shared in our family—
your husband in the reserve, children,
teens really, open as sky beside you.

But when you say your surname, Church, I cringe,
expecting Mom’s grooved tirade against religion
yet it builds a temple pointing to the majesty of blue
through which our planet spins within its womb of stars.

You are the woman I refused to be—
soft-bodied, eyes averted, submissive to spouse and god—
while I’m independent, direct, decisive,
yet am weary of my strength, worn
from years of keeping myself and others alive.

In fact I’m drowning in competence, longing to shed my life and slip into your rose-glow skin reflecting your life’s devotion to faith, service, listening presence, as you teach your children this steadfast path to kindness. Within your sphere of serenity, I pray: Throw me a rope, please, over and o–

Thank you to the editors of Melancholy Hyperbole for first publishing this poem.

Taken

flash fiction, pastel sketch & photo by Elizabeth

TAKEN

I’m haunted that it happened here. Thought this was a safe community. Yet Tammy took that woman’s diamonds, clothes, and almost took her life. She starved that poor woman under the guise of helping a shut-in. Tami helped herself instead.

Never met the woman even though she lived across the street. Didn’t even know she was there for the longest time. Nice home but I thought it was deserted—blinds drawn, never saw anyone go in or out. That is till after I heard Tammy tell a neighbor, “…poor thing…broke her hip…no, no children…needs help.” After that I saw Tammy walking a runt of a dog that trembled and skittered as she drug it down the street till it did its business then half-choked itself lunging against the leash toward home. I’d see Tammy go in around dusk and leave not much after with bags in each hand and always two more tucked under her arms.

I’m embarrassed I didn’t think about it till the deputy asked if I’d seen anything unusual. This was right after the woman’s son came. Apparently she did have a child and he fired Tammy and packed what he could in this tiny trailer hitched to his cigar box of a car. The deputy asked what I’d seen—wanted to know how often Tammy was there, if I’d noticed her wearing fancy jewelry, or how much weight my neighbor had lost the past few months. But all I’d seen was brown bags and that scaredy-dog and how skeletal that woman looked in her boy’s arms when he carried her to his car.

Thank you to the editor of Doorknobs & Body Paint for first publishing this piece.