Dedication

Diagnoses
for my parents

i Alzheimer’s

Once she found a goldcrest’s nest,
tucked it carefully in a crook, made sure
the entrance was clear and open.

Recently the winds have blown it far
from the tree, are gently taking it apart.

ii Infarct

The last dominoes perch unsteadily.
The rest have fallen so that their black
sides are uppermost, the numbers
and the narrative mostly obscured.

(Published in Pendulum: the poetry of dreams, ed Deborah Gaye, Avalanche Books 2008)
Copyright Roselle Angwin 2007.

Reprinted here with kind permission from the author