Wednesday

The Government has announced a Dementia Strategy which will mean the setting up of memory clinics. I imagine these to be huge stores with racks and racks of lost or misplaced remembrances. I have worked with people in various stages of dementia over the last few years. I am saddened when I watch them struggling, but at the same time I am fascinated at how little bits of self seem to dissolve with the fading words and memory.

"My husband is coming
to collect me,"
Gloria says.

Her memories are snapshots
dropped to the floor.
"My husband is coming,
he'll be here."
The visceral connecting tissue,
the tendon, has let loose
the bones
which clatter out of pattern.
"I don't have it."
Time shifts from her grasp,
hides inconsequentially
in her handbag.
She searches for it.
"It's not here.
Do you have it?"
She looks for a moment like a little girl
scared of being told off.

"When is he coming, my husband?"
Gloria asks.