What I Know About Alzheimer's

[Brownlie]

I think this is a great edit.

Newest Edit

What I Know About Alzheimer’s

i. After Death

I’ve always wondered
if father dreamed, did he remember
his own name -- Maybe a question mark here.

He’s buried now with a whirligig -- The whirligig could be its own poem, though I maybe getting ahead of myself.
beside his plot, a headstone etched
with his name and dates so others
will remember him, even if he couldn’t

His last years were beach sand,
a gift to be blown away; Alzheimer’s
was how his distance widened,
how all his names moved
farther and farther away

Sometimes, when I visited, I wondered
whether he was ashamed he could dream
at all.

ii. Before Death

His hands hold the new electric razor;
they can no longer be trusted
to the straight edge. He reminds me oddly
of an older model of a father: boned,
collapsible, something to be forgotten
in a deep closet. Pocked skin, his veneer
of fatigue; arms as if from a child’s drawing. - I'm not sure the article following the semicolon is complete. Child-like arms seems like a more concise way of saying this, but you would have to play along with the alliteration.

He asks me to how to use it and puts it to his face, -- You could put a comma after asks me and make the rest a question to add more guidance for the reader and enhance the sound quality of the poem. Just my opinion though.
as if wanting to scrape thin ice on a winter windshield.

No, here, Dad. Let me show you.

He watches in the mirror as I guide his finger
to the on/off switch, says with a cold-fact delivery,

I used to do this kind of stuff for you.

His dark eyes are hungry to remember; I feel my finger
on his finger, feel the calluses, his skin flaking into dust. -- calluses seems to be the strongest word in this stanza.

Yes, you did. Many times.

iii. Death Night

Father never took slow showers,
nor did I ever ask him about his dreams

over coffee or between bites of corn flakes
or raison toast with Skippy peanut butter. -- Did you mean raisin? The details provide a picture that I can relate to.

He never went religious, not even after Lisa; -- I don't think your article before the semicolon is complete.
I often fell asleep with his Twin Cities voice

on the radio, statically, like bags of salt,
selling London Luggage leather hand bags -- I think the alliteration is distracting. This poem seems to benefit from details and a more conversational tone.

or used cars from towns named Cadott
or Chippewa Falls, cities that have supplied -- I like the town names

the world with cozy children. There is no way
back from there; even when I used to wake

with him on the bed’s edge, I considered him
a genius in our city by the river near the trees.

I left some comments. Thanks for posting.