Her Alzheimer’s Hat

I am the hat she wears
when she thinks there is nothing
on her head
because the black rain
is pouring up from her feet
all the way from Egypt,
where she has forgotten
to put blood on her doorpost.
Did God show her all this
when she balanced on his finger
in steerage?

Alzheimer’s Psalm

When you forgot even the bananas
thrown down to you
in steerage,
the river we’d both
been dragging snapped and broke.
You taped a psalm
to your spider hole
and sat me down
roughly like a god,
one son,
one heap of gristle music.
In my bowl of Egypt,
between doorposts,
I watched you hide the old prayers
beneath the fish scraps.
When we spoke, it was only about Pharaohs.

publications.