Notes From the Dementia Ward. Finuala Dowling

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      Title Page

      FINUALA DOWLING

      Notes

      from the

      dementia

      ward

      KWELA BOOKS/SNAILPRESS

      1. At eighty-five, my mother’s mind

      At eighty-five, my mother’s mind

      When she wanders from room to room

      looking for someone who isn’t there,

      when she asks where we keep the spoons,

      when she can’t chew and spits out her food,

      when her last dim light flickers with falling ash

      and she exclaims: ‘What a dismal end to a brilliant day!’

      when she calls her regular laxative an astronaut,

      when she can’t hear words but fears sounds,

      when she says: ‘Don’t go – I can’t bear it when you go,’

      or: ‘Just run me off the cliff,’

      or wants to know how many Disprin ends it,

      then I think how, at eighty-five,

      my mother’s mind is a castle in ruin.

      Time has raised her drawbridge, lopped her bastions.

      Her balustrade is crumbled, and she leans.

      Yet still you may walk these ramparts in awe.

      Sometimes when she speaks, the ghostly ensign flies.

      Time cannot hide what once stood here,

      or its glory.

      Do not think that we are good

      or merely tourists.

      That which detains us

      was once our fortress.

      2. Taking

      Taking

      After two years of house arrest –

      what they call ‘home care’ –

      I take the soiled sheets from my sister,

      put them in the machine,

      lift the heavy carpet,

      break down.

      The men come running,

      take the carpet from me

      (something to do).

      Then I steady my mad mother

      who, staggering downstairs in her frail bones

      and failing sight,

      takes me in her arms and asks:

      ‘What is the matter, darling?

      Whatever is the matter?’

      3. Shift aside

      Shift aside

      Those nights I lay awake, calculating our ages:

      I was ten to your fifty,

      would be fifteen to your fifty-five,

      twenty to your sixty.

      I pushed them as far as they would go:

      thirty to seventy,

      forty to eighty,

      fifty to ninety.

      The numbers toppled –

      an orphan, at any age.

      I stood in the dark doorway,

      awaiting your invitation.

      Sleepily, on your elbow,

      you would ask: ‘A nightmare?’

      and shift aside on the three-quarter bed.

      Your back was warm;

      your pillow fragrant.

      These nights I lie awake calculating our ages:

      I am forty-five to your eighty-five,

      will be fifty to your ninety,

      sixty to your century.

      I stand in a lit-up doorway

      – disinfectant upon human soil.

      You wince slightly as you shift aside,

      pat the space beside you: ‘Lie here.’

      I wait only until you breathe evenly.

      4. Mere oblivion

      Mere oblivion

      I cannot stop them;

      they come with us,

      my mother’s former selves:

      blurred box-brownie baby from Ficksburg,

      skinnymalinks hand-standing at the Wilderness,

      buxom WAF officer in her pips,

      aquiline actress, face turned to the light,

      amused matriarch captioned ‘dear Octopus?’

      unamused wife of an alcoholic,

      glamorous widow,

      charmer of bank managers,

      sudden understudy:

      drama teacher, estate agent, broadcaster and

      at last, travelling grandmother

      with quip, quote, recipe

      and iodine for everything.

      I cannot stop them;

      they come with us,

      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