Lost Pantoum
By Jill Michelle
Now you can’t find your sentences.
Are they hidden in the ice box
where once we looked for treasures:
your keys, remote, glasses, watch?
Are they hidden in the ice box
forgotten on the office desk like
your keys, remote, glasses, watch?
Will we ever finish unearthing things
forgotten on the office desk like
that legal pad, the novel you began?
Will we ever finish unearthing things—
syllables strewn, verbs tossed?
That legal pad, the novel you began
slipping into Alzheimer’s grip—
syllables strewn, verbs tossed
just ghost notes, punctuated loss.
Slipping into Alzheimer’s grip
now you can’t find your sentences—
just ghost notes, punctuated loss
where once we looked for treasures.
Jill Michelle's latest poems appear/are forthcoming in DMQ Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Gyroscope Review, Funicular Magazine, and Drunk Monkeys. Recent anthology credits include The Book of Bad Betties (Bad Betty Press, UK) and Words from the Brink (Arachne Press Limited, UK). She teaches at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida. Find more of her work at byjillmichelle.com.
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Remarkable poem. It captures what it's like to witness, to be part of a decline from Alzheimer's. And so tastefully, skillfully done.
Wow! I visualize my late husband, my mother and hope not me. Not me