#to my mother's dementia #kaze no denwa

          how do I admit I’m almost glad of it?

          the way it’s scraped off

          those flash-storms of rage

          I grew delicately-feathered

          luna moth antennae

          to fine-tune your emotional weather:

          sometimes a barometric shift

          in the house’s atmosphere / a tight

          quickening / some hard dark shadow

          flickering glossy as obsidian

          pulled down like a nightshade

          behind your irises / but sometimes

          you struck with no warning at all

          rattlesnaked fang of lightning

          incinerating my moon-pale wings

          to crumpled cinder and ash

          now your memory resets

          itself every night / a button

          clearing the trip odometer

          back to zero / dim absinthe fizz

          of radium-green glow

          from the dashboard half-lifing

          a midnight rollover from

          omega to alpha to omega

          I remember when you told me

          (maybe I was three?)

          I was mentally damaged

          like the boy across the street /

          said you’d help me pass

          for normal so no one would know

          but only if I swore to obey

          you / and only you / forever

          now your memory fins

          around and around / like

          the shiny obsessive lassos

          of a goldfish gold-banding

          the narrow perimeters

          of its too-small bowl

          coming home from school

          (maybe I was fifteen?)

          you were waiting for me

          just inside the front door /

          accused me of stealing a can

          of corned beef hash from

          the canned goods stashed

          in the basement / then beat me

          in the face with your shoe

          how do I admit I’m almost glad of it?

          that I’ve always pined for you

          like an unrequited love / though I

          was never beautiful enough

          for you / your tinned bright laugh

          shrapneled flecks of steel to hide

          your anger when people used to say

          we looked like one another

          but now we compare

          our same dimpled hands /

          the thick feathering of eyebrows

          with the same crooked wing

          birdwinging over our left eye /

          our uneven cheekbones making

          one half of our face rounder

          than the other / one side

          a full moon / the other side

          a shyer kind of moon

          how can I admit I’m almost glad of it

          when you no longer recognize

          yourself in photographs

          the mirror becoming stranger

          until one day—will it be soon?—

          you’ll look in my face / once again

          seeing nothing of yourself

          reflected in it, and—unsure

          of all that you were and all

          that you are—ask me: who are you?