Notes From the Dementia Ward. Finuala Dowling

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      touching the bent one gently.

      Not quite the riddle of the Sphinx,

      not quite the March of Progress.

      More like melancholy Jacques,

      if you can imagine

      all seven ages (and more) on stage at once,

      waiting as a cast waits

      for the house lights to come up,

      for mere oblivion.

      5. Where Google has not been

      Where Google has not been

      I have asked so much of the Internet:

      ‘Is it true what I once saw as a child –

      an umbrella hoisted high in the mass?’

      ‘What are the traits of a zebra?’

      ‘Who or what is a senior wrangler?’

      ‘Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul

      when hot for certainties in this our life!

      – Who said that?’

      And I have found such answers

      along its fast electric autobahns:

      Meredith! Pugnacious! Odd-toed!

      The opposite of a wooden spoon!

      A processional canopy was what you saw –

      holy things must be covered!

      I grew sick of Google’s cleverness

      and I grew sly. And so I asked:

      Where is Farrah Fawcett-Majors now?

      Why won’t my mother die?

      Can we hasten death?

      And Google said:

      Try to limit the number of difficult situations

      your loved one has to face.

      Distract her from her hallucinations

      by engaging her in a pleasurable activity.

      Caring for someone with dementia

      can be very rewarding.

      On another page Google offered

      a photographic view of a vulva

      but I have a thousand places inside

      where Google has never been.

      6. Lastness

      Lastness

      All this brouhaha about birthdays and first days

      while anniversaries of lastness pass us by.

      Hallmark has nothing to say about

      the last time you laced your daughter’s shoe,

      the last time a stranger looked twice at your face,

      the last time you swam naked,

      the last time you ran so fast your chest burned,

      the last time you made love and meant it.

      Even if by carrot juice and determined zest

      you have missed these listed lastnesses –

      making meaningful naked underwater love

      after lacing your surprised daughter’s shoes –

      you’ll never avoid them all. In particular,

      there will be a last day when you steer

      your mad mother down her own front steps,

      drive her silently from her own house

      for the last time, carefully not saying:

      ‘Look back, Ma, look up – that was your home.

      You are seeing and leaving it for the last time.’

      Carefully not saying:

      ‘Because you no longer lace shoes.’

      7. Your children, parents, siblings, spouses, pets, bêtes-noires, acquaintances

      Your children, parents, siblings, spouses, pets, bêtes-noires, acquaintances

      They will all die

      but not in the right order.

      7. Self-portrait from the dementia ward

      Self-portrait from the dementia ward

      After a few mouthfuls of supper

      she lies back on her pillows,

      struggling against the bedsore to be comfortable.

      Words elude her: ‘Everything is so . . .’

      and she moves her elegant fingers

      in a way to suggest a Jackson Pollock painting.

      I think about prompting her

      but I want to hear the substitute –

      the synonym that her shattered genius will provide.

      Even so I am surprised:

      ‘. . . modernistic,’ she says eventually

      and closes her eyes,

      exhausted by the last stand,

      the self-portrait.

      8. How I knew it wasn’t me

      How I knew it wasn’t me

      I only realised I was at risk

      when my brother phoned to check if I was still alive –

      he’d heard it on the radio:

      a woman fitting my description apparently wept

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