pictured words

The Mother of Alzheimer’s

Who birthed (unearthed)
This unwelcome invasion,
Or gave it the right
To hijack each occasion
Meant to endure and assure her
She’s loved. She belongs.

It ceaselessly wrongs her,
Assassinates her senses;
Condenses her being
To fleeting moments,
Thought amputation,
Self dislocation,
And few kin.

And it will win.

© Marie Elena Good, 2016


Mom’s Passing (2018)

She began speaking
of needing to get ready
for the bus (taxi?)

that would very soon
be arriving to take her.
If she knew where to,

she didn’t tell us.
Such questions were hard for her,
so we wouldn’t ask.

We’d just pack for her,
had she asked us to do so.
For years she couldn’t.

She couldn’t decide
what to take, or what to leave.
Empty her closet.

Sleep in the guest room,
as her bed was filled with clothes
she would take nowhere.

Now she couldn’t leave.
Couldn’t get up from her bed.
She didn’t know that.

She didn’t know that
she was on hospice care now.
She didn’t know that

her last fall would be
what interrupts this disease,
and its progression.

That it would still win,
but wouldn’t finish the race.
So she would win, too.

… and the “slow goodbye”
ended in twenty eighteen,
when she journeyed on.

© Marie Elena Good 2026