Not seven steps from the familiar geography of her room
her bewilderment sagged on her walking frame
as she shied away from the stern arm
that was guiding her.
She cried, ‘Where are you taking me?’
in the fretting voice of a sleepy child;
and I stooped to look for her roseate smile
and saw instead, in the unerring vacancy of her face,
the scattered particulars of her life.
We composed ourselves upon the couch
long enough for her to plead
‘But I don’t know who you are.’
as she trembled
beneath the insult of my peering eyes
and frowned away;
and I felt a stranger’s smile curdling on my face.
In this last patience
she was worn by remembering,
mastered by great age;
exhausted,
as she strained towards recollections of love;
and we sat on the couch,
each perched in our own fierce absence
with the gas fire hissing,
the electric clock ticking electric time,
until, in a small voice from a far off place
she said ‘You look just like your father.’