Volunteering at an Alzheimer’s Unit
Yesterday, you finished a puzzle
with them, placing each piece
slowly, not wanting to overstep
their weekly ritual while they slept,
or smiled sweetly, or asked who you were
again, or described the weather
on the day they met: a quiet, coaxing
dawn—she, a scientist, studying aspens,
he, a teacher hiking the weekend
away, the Earth almost reaching
its seasonal turn when fall had not quite
relinquished itself, leaves swelling yellow,
catching sunlight like anyone would catch
love, if they found it, because of course
they named their daughter after trees,
Aspen, who they spent each day imagining
planting flowers in some summer garden
instead of slipping pills into her mouth,
or opening zip-locks of white powder
in metro restrooms, Aspen, who loved
playing in the snow, pretending to be
a bird, or a ghost, or an azalea bush
come alive—and they were still smiling
at you, wrinkles silently demonstrating
this age when grieving was replaced
with gratitude: a silvering mist
settling their most burdened neurons
to sleep—Aspen, who painted a sea
split in puzzle pieces: a gray,
rebelling sheet of water promising
storms and salt-clogged lungs,
and it was the way they both paused,
listening to what could only have been
its ceaseless squall, that made you see
why they no longer had the space
for recent memories: for collecting
last week’s ripened tangerines,
or waking to the awkward coughs
of starlings, or watching the dust
hover in nebulas by the window
each morning, an amazement
incapable of growing old.