My Father's Language

When my father sits in the straight-backed leather chair

the room contains him as my head contains this thought

of him. As though, in the gathering darkness,

made safe by the position of a rug or lamp,

he is not being lost to shadows and incoherence.

As though he is not being lost to the drift of age.

Alzheimer's—slow accumulation of losses.

First, memory: the near shore of my father's life,

licked by the wavelets, starts to grow faint and vague.

Next it is swept clear by the escaping tide.