an Alzheimer’s poem

One day the checkbook felt odd 
in his hand. Weightless and foreign-
smelling. New, somehow, in a dog-eared, 
tattered way. He was at the roll-top desk 
with all its marvelous little compartments, 
filled, suddenly, with rare finds 
that could be twirled between thumb 
and forefinger, held up to the light. 
He looked down at the invoice and began 
to copy the shapes onto the check: 
A…   T…   T…   But the numbers 
began to somersault and shimmer. And 
by the time he’d gotten back to the check 
they’d wriggled off, taking every scrap 
of sense along. And so he sat there, 
a puddle of sunlight in the cup of his hands.
 
It went on like this through the days 
and weeks, the world growing more 
and more slippery, more and more alive. 
The hours came close and pressed their faces 
into his. The world went wild with its newness, 
crooning and carrying on into the night. 
And his life came down to a search 
for a place to sit and watch the house breathe,

a place from which he could gaze through 
the small clean window on the far wall—
so clean these days, it almost wasn’t there.