My Grandmother’s Alzheimers
My Grandmother’s Alzheimer’s;
I sometimes think she is halfway to heaven:
she stands up and says she must prepare
for teaching the children;
of course she must.
They all wear halos.
Her daughter lives in a nice house
down south; of course she does,
she died last year
and is with my grandmother’s brother
who she must call, she says
reaching for the telephone.
And she knows I am still at school,
and she knows I must call my mother;
I see her hand pure white beneath the water
as she picks up a newt,
or her baby sister out of the water,
crying for mammy.