Dementia

You didn’t recognize me,
in those later years.
That’s alright.
I didn’t recognize you, either.

It was hard not to see
the life you had lived
as a preamble to this tragedy
all that joy seemed only
to give it more to steal.
You were always going to lose
we all are
but it seemed unfair
that it made you linger
after everything was gone.

I had known that spark in your eye
mischief burning in that wry smile
did I really think
it could extinguish that?
I should have known, then,
you had one more trick in store.

I remember
it came in that final moment
and what a picture that painted.
Those eyes
milky blue with cataract and amnesia
now bursting with clarity
and looking past us
I did not see what they saw
but how they saw it
and that was enough
to know that corpse you left behind
in its agonal breathing
was a prison.
To know that you were free.

The joy thundered in that room
Untouched. Defiant. Stronger
in the face of that disease.

Still the strange dichotomy persists-
to have seen what it stole from you
and wonder with fear
if I will inherit my birthright.
To have seen how it ended
and know with hope
there are some things
it can not take.

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