it’s all the same poem;

me losing something

and later,  not

remembering anything

as I fall into the dementia

and I think,

some things are hereditary

and some things are a wash

before they arrive.

I wish I would have saved

my dead dog’s hair brush,

my dead cat’s mouse,

some pictures of my friends,

my childhood house

before it crumbled from

the moisture, the squirrels,

the rats and us;

wish I saved anything to

do with us,

I think as I erase 

our conversation.

when i’m old I want to be 

confused about what shook me

most.

you end up counting pennies

at the end,

penurious again

wrapped in pewter

mansion.   you’re lost

in a giant house

with a giant yard

by a giant lake you

swear contains an alligator,

a few dogs and cats,

 a room lined with books,

a nurse to remind you not

to eat your sweater

and dreams of sons,

or daughters if they’ll have

me, and us. trying to 

remember us. 

“Grief part 6”