she can't seem to write those little poems anymore
without warning, you begin
to erode like limestone that has
been too long in water underground
or buildings suffering through damage from
an earthquake. you have always been
so quiet that this sudden deviation
announces itself with a bang as loud
as a dropped piano.
no one knows what to do when we find you
in the kitchen in the middle of the night
making sandwiches for people who are not actually
standing in front of you. no one knows
what to do when you begin to laugh
without stopping, pulling at your
hair so that it comes out in long black strands
on the carpet. your hands beat and shake.
behind your back as you are facing them, the people
you used to know talk themselves into anxious circles
because tomorrow you will wake up
with a sore head, maybe a sore throat, and you
will not remember. it is worse this way
than it could be. suddenly everyone
around you is standing on a fault
although we are told vehemently,
several times, that it is not our fault at all.
the doctor says that you will always
have lapses like this one. he calls them lapses
because when they happen you are obviously not yourself
or at least not the self you show us everyday. you have
a name still but it is a different one, not your own,
a word that is never spoken or even recognized
but lives on the tips and curves
of lips and tongues.
I can't reach out to you when you walk around the house
naked and talking at length to yourself
because although the tilting of our noses
is identical, you seem to have forgotten
who I am. and what I think is not important,
because of course we will all do our best
to make you better or at least turn your
sickness into something we can bear,
but a wild part of me wishes you would
always stay as you are when you are making those
midnight sandwiches as though it is up to you
to write the world's last composition
of beautiful music. I know this much is true
even as it becomes my job to keep you
away from unattended flights of stairs
and open windows, afraid that amongst
all your other new powers you can
now take the form of a wounded sparrow.