DIFFERENT MOTHER.

A SON AND HIS MOTHER WITH DEMENTIA.

Mother doesn’t know
Him anymore. She
Speaks in a different

Tongue, views things dimly
From another aged
Perspective. Who’re

You? I’m your son, he
Replies, watching the
Fog move slow across

The blue eyes. You’re not
My son, you’re much too
Frigging old, Mother

Says, brushing away
The suggestion like
An irritating

Fly. He sits still and
Studies Mother close,
The turn of head, the

False teeth removed, the
Occasional soft
Conversations she

Has with the long dead.
He remembers when
She held his small hand

When he was young to
Cross roads, to keep from
Harm, her eyes bright then

Surveying the wide
Horizon for the
Dangerous hordes or

 Sad moral decline,
Keeping him on the
Straight and narrow, spoke

The wisdom of the
Age. Now she mutters
In a different tongue,

Leaving her muddled
Conversation half
Way, in mid air, which

She’s just then begun.
Who’re you? She asks
Turning slow the poor

Vision upon him,
The room warm, lights bright,
But seeming dim. He’s

Your son, the nurse says,
Standing by. He’s not
My son, Mother says,

He’s too butt ugly,
Like a battered coin,
And then she’s away

On some different plane,
Conversing with the
Long lost dead again.