Entangled in the Body of Memory

My father, who has dementia, lives between one place and another and so we travel through memories that surface, shift and change We voice them not as record but as poem or song or a collection of words Johnny Cash hums somewhere in my memory You can run on for a long time sooner or later God is going to cut you down I type carer The program flags an error asking me to rewrite spellcheck insists on career the role must earn to exist A book about poetry lies open I take out the word poetry in a piece about Charles Baudelaire and replace it with Care and Love Care and Love cannot under pain of death or failure be assimilated to science or morality It does not have Truth as its goal It only has itself Wizard he says And what are you going to do now I’ve stopped calling him Daddy Carer Service provider he asks the GP Like the Navy I served in the Navy Is carer a rank Is that her new name Good grief, is she no longer my daughter Care from the Gothic kara is to lament to grieve to cry out with Not toward but with — from a book we can no longer place My father cuts the cord on his rise and recline chair You didn’t hang it right Is that my chin he asks staring Where’s my mother I might have said she died Instead The toast is coming I remember how you like the butter, soft to the edge Next a box of matches burnt to a crisp He asks Why can’t you be more friendly Our past folds into the present There’s something I’ve got to tell you, but I don’t know what it is Maybe it will come I will brush teeth one hundred and twenty seconds potatoes apples his voice my listening tangled in an orchard of memory Cox’s Orange Pippin and Nutty Russets Our mother laughing shouting She hid them until the ripe time Haha ripe and right Each apple swaddled in tissue like tiny babies How many coconut cakes did she bake in a day How many times did the pressure cooker bounce us into life Steeped in it chair sheets air thick Yes He laughs Piss head Piss off Then quieter Shit on my head Shithead Shit Get off I wipe rinse replace Try to make dignity out of a habit We all have to go he says Jesus what a smell Does he I ask him if he wants personal services He’s always liked a pun He grins I know that film Toothpaste under the sink Marmalade over cornflakes Bring the wine he shouts We move through chaos as if rehearsing a ritual

He reads out loud at whim The Fairest Fowl Portraits of Championship Chickens Once I was a handsome fowl a bird of historical significance Over tea he drops warfarin into his homemade blister packs handwritten labels shouting in huge letters I watch the careful rhythm of his hands precise deliberate Are those doses muddled — ten milligrams too many blood loosens its hold I hold my breath I change the doses back He looks at his new trainers Their history is not mine My feet are in space and if the laces rise above my ankles I will be a Captain of Foot and will run past Ramillies Thomas Aquinas past Giotto past tomorrow He pauses picks up a lifestyle magazine and improvises I am still alive Intelligent Talented A fabulous shopper A good listener Good dresser I was marvellous I was noteworthy I was unique Admitted to the Standard of Perfection as far back as 1874 He turns to someone only he can see A frieze of peas is blocking the entrance approach with caution The sun is lonely and the Barber not shaved me for weeks

Then up away suspended in a hoist flown from bed to chair We need a safety helmet A tool belt He hovers The moment holds like sculpture weight lift turn balance Do you think a carer could be, in a very real sense, a sculptor of life? Reap, he says, and Wizard