Dementia
 
For my mother and sister
 
“I want to go back to where I was before,”
one says. The other speaks; she wants to know:
“Will this boat take me to the farther shore?”
 
They want to go back to where they were before—
before this broken road, this shifting floor,
this dance of diminution fast and slow.
 
Will this boat take them to the farther shore?
They’re travelers in a land half metaphor,
half muddle. Some place dark that lives below.
 
Their memories, like the ocean, ebb and flow;
they want to go back to where they were before.
Let this boat take them to the farther shore.


Lisa Barnett
 
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Lisa Barnett   would like to hear them