the first thing she lost

when you want to remember their name
some actor or actress
and when it doesn’t come
you just let it go
it shows up later at some odd time

when you walk into a room
and you can’t think of why
so you go back to what you were doing
and then you remember

it’s not like that at all

it’s like you’re in a bar
full of strangers who want to talk to you
buy you drinks
laughing
telling stories
staring at you
acting like they know you
like they care
like they’re interested

she knew somehow
back in her late thirties she told me
made me promise
she wouldn’t want to live this way
had seen it happen to her mother
slowly losing pieces of herself

the first thing she lost
was knitting
not the needles or the yarn
the muscle memory
how to finish a row
or a sleeve

she knew somehow
this was different
that it wasn’t just getting old

and the thing with the tests is
they don’t know
it’s more about symptoms than proteins
so you get a couple of years of hoping

then she lost minutes
and conversations
seemed a little scatterbrained
reasking every question
sometimes half a dozen times
and nothing sticks
and they think it’s fine
they just answer again
or it’s not fine and they blame you
they get frustrated
push you to do better
to try harder

and one day you realize
just for a moment
if you didn’t know it before
you will never know it
you can’t learn it
can’t be told or shown
can’t read a book
can’t look it up on Google or YouTube

and one day you realize
just for a moment
if you don’t know it now
you will never know it
can only go to stores and restaurants
where you already know where the doors are

and one day you realize
just for a moment
if you don’t know it
you never will

then the decades slide away
and you’re losing everything
and you can’t get it back
and you can’t make new friends
and you can’t remember old friends
and you can’t remember your children
and you don’t know where you live
and you can’t remember that you ate
and you don’t remember you turned the stove on
and you weren’t aware you needed to pee

and you don’t know why
you’re holding these scissors
and your brain just does its best
to fill in a story

then all of her emotions take their turns taking over
the funniest, happiest person I knew
is now angry
snapping, glaring, saying hateful things

and when she no longer knew how to be angry
she became afraid
afraid for her life
her own family trying to kill her
to poison her to stab and strangle and suffocate
shouting it out in restaurants, in grocery stores
so she ran away
into the woods, into the forest
the paths she’d hiked every day for 25 years
which was not so bad
when the family dogs knew how to coax her back
and she forgot
that Smiley and Thistle-hair had died
so she kept asking about them
and every morning a note pinned to her outfit
with a phone number
explaining in case someone tries to rescue her
in case the police get involved

and the next time you see her she’s just sad
crying all the time
begging her husband not to leave her
at the memory ward
to stay
to come back
to stay
that you’ll be good
that you’ll be better
that you’ll be better
that you’ll try harder
try harder to be better

that you’ll try harder
that you’ll be good
that you’ll get better

David Duncan is a poet and storyteller from the Southwestern United States. His work has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Milk Carton Press, About Place Journal, Zeitgeist Press, and The National Library of Poetry. He can be found performing online and at open mic’s in the Las Vegas area.

Photo: “loving hands” by Alan Bern