primary caregiver

(july 2013)


Step one of growing older in the presence of the elderly: observe how the giants of your childhood wither into frailty
Step two: begin to second guess every eccentricity
Is this what they meant by signs to look for?
When did she get so small?
How could she have ever forgotten my birthday?
Step three: dance around her with the nervousness reserved for the ill.
She will look at you with the resentment that can only come from those whom illness has only left shame and regret.
Step four: begin to hold her hand again.

It is one to thing to care for the senescent
And another to do it in the house they raised you in.

In Your Old Age

Day 3- Find the nearest book (of any kind). Turn to page 8. Use the first ten full words on the page in a poem. You may use them in any order, anywhere in the poem.

Senescence is the great equaliser.
great men, average men,
men of faith, men of none
living life with the promise
that some of its secrets will be revealed
but all you will ever learn
are verbs like forgetting
and dying.