Sharon M. Van Sluijs
School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Pediatrics
2021
Poem
The nurse told me, yesterday my mother talked
about my father as though he were here,
maybe “upstairs” somewhere. She knew it.
Though he is gone a year.
The nurse told me, this morning my mother lost
track of an apple she saved from supper,
hidden—who knows where? She, sunk in
no memory, at times, of anything
fresher than decades ago.
I’m here. Will she recall
my name? It will
come to that—her mind’s
implacable self-deletion.
I try to imagine
and know I will gasp
when I fade to Who?
Nameless.
Stranger.
“Hi, Mama,” I say, “Do you know me?”
She looks, fogged, then focused,
and smiles wide.
Yes is an apple, shiny and solid,
sweet with our history,
still knowing, for now,
now.