| Foreword by Tess Gallagher |
xv |
| Preface |
xxi |
| Acknowledgments |
xxv |
| |
|
| I. Everything Framed Against the Dark |
|
| Judith H. Montgomery |
|
| The Photographer's Father |
3 |
| Candace Pearson |
|
| Another Country |
5 |
| Bruce Berger |
|
| Across, Down |
7 |
| Rachel Dacus |
|
| Elegy for an Amputation |
8 |
| Alice Derry |
|
| Rushing to Return |
9 |
| Brian Daldorph |
|
| The Tired Builder |
12 |
| Lorene Delany-Ullman |
|
| Filler |
13 |
| Drew Myron |
|
| Erosion |
14 |
| Joseph Green |
|
| She Falls for It Over & Over |
15 |
| Sean Nevin |
|
| Again, the Gnome and I Catch Dawn |
17 |
| Judith Barrington |
|
| Ineradicable |
19 |
| Ryan G. Van Cleave |
|
| Blue Sonnet |
21 |
| Arlene Ang |
|
| Five Minutes of Silence |
22 |
| Linda Alexander |
|
| Your True Life |
23 |
| |
|
| II. Azure Dissolve |
|
| Ellen Kirvin Dudis |
|
| Les Nuages |
27 |
| Jim Natal |
|
| From In Memory of Her Memory |
29 |
| Tess Gallagher |
|
| She Wipes Out Time |
31 |
| Larry D. Thomas |
|
| Diminuendo |
34 |
| Len Roberts |
|
| My Uncle Chauncey drove my Aunt Eleanor |
36 |
| Carolyn A. Dahl |
|
| Everyday Cookies |
38 |
| Sean Nevin |
|
| Losing Solomon |
40 |
| Melanie Martin |
|
| Verbal Charms |
41 |
| Scott Peterson |
|
| Finding Mother |
44 |
| Martha Modena Vertreace-Doody |
|
| Continuum |
46 |
| Andrew Riutta |
|
| White Lilac: Three Haiku and a Tanka |
48 |
| Rachel Dacus |
|
| At the Easel with Alzheimer’s |
49 |
| |
|
| III. My Mind Is a Cold Oven |
|
| Lana Hechtman Ayers |
|
| My Mind Is a Cold Oven |
53 |
| Sheryl L. Nelms |
|
| Early Alzheimer’s |
55 |
| Andrena Zawinski |
|
| Hot Flashes |
56 |
| Gary Thompson |
|
| Opera |
58 |
| Barry Spacks |
|
| What’s-Her-Name |
59 |
| Dave Parsons |
|
| They |
61 |
| |
|
| IV. Across the Border |
|
| Tess Gallagher |
|
| Across the Border |
65 |
| Penny Harter |
|
| No Destination |
67 |
| Richard Beban |
|
| Odysseus, Mortal |
69 |
| Chris Tusa |
|
| My Grandmother’s Teeth |
70 |
| Peter Seidman |
|
| Accretion |
71 |
| Cara Spindler |
|
| From Missing Script: Four: Paint a black hole on the floor |
74 |
| |
|
| V. I Do |
|
| E. A. Axelberg |
|
| I Do |
79 |
| Gary Young |
|
| Rev. Robert A. Young (1893–1977) |
80 |
| Mary Zeppa |
|
| The Married Man Keeping His Vows |
82 |
| Ronald Pies |
|
| From The Alzheimer’s Sonnets: Sonnet for a Missing Singer |
83 |
| Ethna McKiernan |
|
| Absences |
84 |
| Potatoes |
86 |
| Stephen Mead |
|
| Nostalgia |
87 |
| Jeff Worley |
|
| To My Father, Now on Liquids in the Tucson Nursing Home |
89 |
| Tim Myers |
|
| At the Alzheimer’s Center |
90 |
| Maureen Owens |
|
| Carlos y Norma |
91 |
| Persis Knobbe |
|
| Dementia |
92 |
| Jane Alynn |
|
| The Strains of Memory |
93 |
| Gilbert Allen |
|
| How |
95 |
| Esther Altshul Helfgott |
|
| Spouse as Home |
97 |
| Ailsa Kennedy Steinert |
|
| Nocturne |
99 |
| |
|
| VI. What’s Enough |
|
| Mark Thalman |
|
| Short-Term Memory Loss |
103 |
| Linda Annas Ferguson |
|
| My Mother Doesn’t Know Me |
105 |
| Elizabeth Farrell |
|
| Safe-Deposit Box |
106 |
| Allan Douglass Coleman |
|
| Ukiah Afternoon |
107 |
| Concerning Ice Cream on Mom’s Side of the Family |
108 |
| Catherine Wiley |
|
| What’s Enough |
111 |
| Rob Hardy |
|
| Fudgesicle |
113 |
| John Grey |
|
| The Strangers in Your Room |
115 |
| John Davis |
|
| Down and Around |
116 |
| Jan Harrington |
|
| On July Nights I Stay with My Father |
118 |
| Holly J. Hughes |
|
| The Bath |
119 |
| Claire Keyes |
|
| A Little Less Than the Angels |
121 |
| M. J. Iuppa |
|
| Passing the Hat |
123 |
| Judith Arcana |
|
| Mamababy |
125 |
| Arthur Ginsberg |
|
| Pacific Sunset |
127 |
| |
|
| VII. Lay Back the Darkness |
|
| Edward Hirsch |
|
| Lay Back the Darkness |
131 |
| Wheeling My Father through the Alzheimer’s Ward |
132 |
| David Mason |
|
| Home Care |
134 |
| Nancy Dahlberg |
|
| We All Fall Down |
136 |
| Denise Calvetti Michaels |
|
| Visiting Rose Haven Adult Family Home |
137 |
| Jayne Pupek |
|
| Equations |
139 |
| Kay Mullen |
|
| The Visit |
140 |
| Madelyn Garner |
|
| The Poem in Which the Histologist Learns the Meaning of Irony |
141 |
| Kate Bernadette Benedict |
|
| Recognition |
143 |
| Nancy Dahlberg |
|
| Confirmation |
145 |
| Marion Boyer |
|
| Within His Grasp |
147 |
| Margot Wizansky |
|
| Hands |
149 |
| Holly Zeeb |
|
| Sarcophagus |
150 |
| |
|
| VIII. Missing Pieces |
|
| Shebana Coelho |
|
| Night |
153 |
| Diane Porter Goff |
|
| Missing Pieces |
155 |
| Barbara S. Simpson |
|
| Saturdays with Mom |
157 |
| Tina Welling |
|
| Reprieve |
159 |
| Mary Barrett |
|
| Eclipse |
161 |
| Sybil Lockhart |
|
| Naked |
162 |
| Christine Higgins |
|
| The Day Room |
164 |
| Nina Corwin |
|
| In Which Grandma Belle Navigates the Altoona Nursing Home |
165 |
| Sarah Leavitt |
|
| Kaddish |
167 |
| |
|
| IX. Here Let Us |
|
| Donna Wahlert |
|
| Here Let Us: Late Middle Alzheimer’s Disease |
171 |
| Rick Kempa |
|
| Prayer for My Mother |
172 |
| Joel A. McCollough |
|
| Returning Thanks |
173 |
| Dan Bellm |
|
| Elegy / in advance / do not hasten |
174 |
| |
|
| X. Time with the Dying |
|
| Elizabeth Garton Scanlon |
|
| The suitcase propped open |
181 |
| Marion Boyer |
|
| Moving Day, the Alzheimer’s Wing |
183 |
| Cathleen Calbert |
|
| Moving My Mother |
184 |
| Jeff Worley |
|
| After a Trip to the VA Hospital Alzheimer’s Ward, Tucson |
185 |
| Nancy Tupper Ling |
|
| The day after Auntie moves to The Maples |
187 |
| Joanne Clarkson |
|
| Following the Deer |
188 |
| Elizabeth Cohen |
|
| The Forgotten World |
190 |
| Margot Wizansky |
|
| Magnolias |
192 |
| Linda Alexander |
|
| Time with the Dying |
193 |
| Theodore Deppe |
|
| Great Egrets |
194 |
| |
|
| XI. Winter Solstice |
|
| Ellen Kirvin Dudis |
|
| Winter Solstice |
199 |
| Susan Ludvigson |
|
| Where We Have Come |
200 |
| Kenith Simmons |
|
| Augury |
203 |
| Joel A. McCollough |
|
| Augury |
205 |
| Paulann Petersen |
|
| Reprieve |
207 |
| David Mason |
|
| The Inland Sea |
209 |
| Judy Kronenfeld |
|
| The Withering of Their State |
211 |
| Joan I. Siegel |
|
| Letting Go |
213 |
| |
|
| XII. Still Life |
|
| Jeff Worley |
|
| His Funeral |
217 |
| Kake Huck |
|
| Death Picks Up My Aunt, Huldah Bell |
219 |
| Pamela Miller Ness |
|
| A Woodpecker Taps |
220 |
| Ellen Kirvin Dudis |
|
| Still Life |
222 |
| Marie Bahlke |
|
| Goodwill |
223 |
| Paulann Petersen |
|
| Lane Change |
225 |
| Gary Thompson |
|
| My Father Calls |
227 |
| Susan Ludvigson |
|
| Dreaming My Mother in the Bone Church, Kostnice |
228 |
