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Home / Bulletin 3 / You Have Alzheimer’s

Jun 30 2021

You Have Alzheimer’s

By Lin Kaatz Chary

Poetry

ASP Bulletin | July 2, 2021

This poem was selected as a winner of Alan Squire Publishing's April, 2021 National Poetry Month Contest after prompts created by Rose Solari.

< before next >

Salt crystals glitter, shattered glass 

on wet boardwalk, wood 

darkened by melting snow,  

 

the salt seeps between the cracks 

of coming wounds. The hummingbird 

is gone, seeds and hulls scattered. 

 

At my step the cats skitter and run;  

the ginger, the brindle, the black 

and white. Only the tigers and alleys 

 

crouch, ears erect, watching.

In the field beyond the fence 

the grass is bent, humped by wind 

 

into curved mounds against snow-

speckled ground. The horses are all 

gone. The spiteful neighbor cut 

 

holes in the fence. In the distance 

the sky is pale and white, blurring 

into cloud and snow until gray bands 

 

press against a flat horizon. In a sudden 

flutter a shock of cardinals bursts 

through the spindled limbs of your apple tree

 

blood sprayed from an opened vein

they shoot through the branches the rush of their wings 

slicing a scarlet wound in the sky.

Salt crystals glitter, shattered glass 

on wet boardwalk, wood 

darkened by melting snow,  

 

the salt seeps between the cracks 

of coming wounds. The hummingbird 

is gone, seeds and hulls scattered. 

 

At my step the cats skitter and run;  

the ginger, the brindle, the black 

and white. Only the tigers and alleys 

 

crouch, ears erect, watching.

In the field beyond the fence 

the grass is bent, humped by wind 

 

into curved mounds against snow-

speckled ground. The horses are all 

gone. The spiteful neighbor cut 

 

holes in the fence. In the distance 

the sky is pale and white, blurring 

into cloud and snow until gray bands 

 

press against a flat horizon. In a sudden 

flutter a shock of cardinals bursts 

through the spindled limbs of your apple tree

 

blood sprayed from an opened vein

they shoot through the branches the rush of their wings 

slicing a scarlet wound in the sky.

 

< before next >

Lin Kaatz Chary is a poet and writer who lives with her dog, DG, on the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan in Gary, IN. She is currently working on a memoir about her life as a steelworker and communist organizer in a major steel mill in the late 1970’s and early ‘80’s. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 2020.

Written by Alan Squire Publishing · Categorized: Bulletin 3

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