Response Poem 2: Jasmine

(Response to: "In Search of Evanescence")

The Home-Going
            "I want to eat evanescence slowly."
                                      -Emily Dickinson

(1)

"Let's go home?"
In her grey eyes
I do not know what she sees

My grandmother - a beautiful child
I want to hold.

I can hold her
but I also cannot.

She slips away
a little
each time
she looks at me
and sees a stranger.

I say my name to her,
I hold her hand
and the 2 seconds that follow
-  stretch out like dough.
I and time
halt
for her recollection of me.

1'
She is curiously looking at me
I stare at her with a terrible thing called hope
2'
Her face transforms
she smiles at me

Her grey eyes see me now
I am shattered
with joy.

(2)

I dream of you climbing
a spiral staircase
each step your foot leaves - disappears
I scream from the ground
"How will you return?
How will you return?!"

You
sometimes suddenly
the daughter I'll never have.

I hold your hand
My fingernails are shaped like your finger nails

I look and compare
the backs of our hands
My veins have started to branch out like yours

Perhaps you remember
faintly, a 9-year old me

I want to eat evanescence slowly.

"How long will we stay here? We should head home."
I say, "This is home Mataji."

She gives me a look of betrayal

This is not the home her mind has picked
from her cabinet of memories
Drawers and drawers
of 80 years of life
only few open for her access now
others remain locked
- dementia has misplaced the keys
or thrown them in the river

Something tells me she doesn't need those memories
I do.

her grey eyes see me
and I love being seen.

(3)

She looks at her reflection in the mirror
And does not recognize herself

"This is you, mataji."
The realization strikes for a moment and then
it's gone

I don't break the illusion this time
My obsession with 'reality' can wait

She greets her reflection
she speaks to her,
she has found in her - a friend.

"When are we going home?"
I don't fight her instinct this time
I say, "we will go soon."