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.
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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
