Alzheimer’s Pavane

by Dawn McGuire

Back then we took our time, the pea hen
and I, in stately parallel, kicking swirls
of gravel on the road to the farm,

me stopping to unfurl a thought
or unknot two, she to clean her
end-of-summer feathers.

Strong winds brought grit to her gown,
tears to my eyes. Even after losing
her peacock to a winter wolf,

she never let herself go. Her beak
scraped each feather like a comb.
I’d stop, and then she would. Civility

seemed to string us on one tether. Or
she’d stop first, and then I’d try
to strip a thought of its nostalgia,

my self-pity, scrub it to a higher sheen,
an ordered thing
to bring back to the farm,

where Grandmother was hiking up
the flour sack around her waist
to pee on her nasturtiums,

Grandfather on the porch as in a frieze,
shading his eyes, looking
leeward, past the horizon.