A small collection of poems about illness and disease.

Sabine

What I know of old age is what I have 
Heard- tales of wide eyes and warnings
Her bed is made with fresh sheets now
The plastic wrapping whooshing by 
A ghostlike echo in a room built for two
I glide past it with such apparent ease 
Which is why I can fetch my own drinks
While they brought her the usual order
But I can’t help but wonder whose luck, 
Whose misfortune has already reached her
She who enters the black of night unwilling
Or I who rest my bag in the exact same spot 
With forty less years breathing and bleeding

91

She came into the world late and 
Reluctant, limbs flailing backwards 
Leaves trying desperately not to fall 
So it wasn’t surprising that she left 
Late for death, refusing his invitation 
The price she paid gnawed into her 
Bones crunching, sawing one by one
The gritting, demeaning sound of aging 
Ice cold hands robbed of circulation 
Curled around the walker, lips pursed 
In prayer (words fumbled or forgotten)
Eyes stretched wide with confusion 
For she who refuses to gently pass on

Dementia I

The things we lost were not that grave
My mother’s ring, passed down for years
My grandmother’s silver, carefully polished 
The final voicemail from my grandfather
(so maybe the losses mount)
But they are nothing compared to the words
The sounds that slip away, start to evade us 
The blank letters my grandmother writes 
Believing they are filled with meaning

Dementia II

Grandma took hours on these cards, 
My mother says
She told me to mail them to her sisters with care 
She imagines words of love and comfort
When she opens them, 
The cards are blank. 

Dementia III

Dad is on the phone again
This time she found the scissors
There are bugs in the carpet
They illuminate at night and dance
A menacing parade for her eyes only
She is clawing through the wall
To break free of the routine
I hug her twice when we leave
Grasp her wrinkled arms and 
Hope that I don’t leave bruises
Memories of me to last for weeks
But she already forgot what I said
She is carving holes in the table. 

Untitled

He texted me, I’m right here
He was in the same room
It wasn’t a few years until 
The Alzheimer’s claimed him
But by then I was oceans away
5,000 miles of dirt and distance 
Remembering the last time 
I grasped his hands in mine 
When I was there with him 
I wonder when was the last time
He was really there with me

White Matter

I thought white matter was like static 
Foreign sounds buzzing, meaningless 
But they tell me now it’s in my head
Cloudy and looming, foreboding
My anxiety can’t take the uncertainty, 
I laugh nervously, brushing it off 
Always I fear it’s a disease (play it off!)
He looks me (dead) direct in the eye
Of course it’s a disease, he exclaims,
Waving papers. Maybe more than one.