One Poem by Lauren Camp

Alzheimer’s: At the End of Logic

Right now where he is
twenty-foot winds

are wound to trees: lost,
losing yellowed

leaves. What I mean
to describe

is the volatile
confusion that becomes

Dad’s mouth,
the shear dwelling

on the periphery
of logic. He is still

in his blue
shirt at the end

of a day, which is
unalterable

fact, though his mind
is snagged

by a purposeless
devastation

where it hits
and flings

its reason, the warm
tooth of the demented storm,

and the center of my father
whirls toward shore.

*

Lauren Camp is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press). Honors include the Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award and the North American Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Ecotone, Witness and Poet Lore, and been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic. www.laurencamp.com

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