Paper, Scissors, Rock

Sixty-four, looking ninety,
my mother – stripped naked,
mirrored in a bathroom door.

I recall, how as a child, lips
that had kissed a sore knee well
in seconds, could only spew
profanities, fighting to retain
tattered remains
of a long-discarded dignity.

Helped them lift her
to the bath – she,
who’d been fastidious
to a fault and used to smell
of lavender and Lifebouy;
they, who would have her
reek of disinfectant.
‘Routine procedure’,
they said, for all.

Got some scissors
from her handbag,
tried to trim her hair –
scraped back; wayward
strands bent on escaping
a rubber band, but she
was scared, so I whispered,
“It’s me. Don’t be afraid...”

which in retrospect was stupid.
‘Me’ could have meant the man
in the moon for all she knew
as she grabbed my hand –
stunned me with those childlike,
blue eyes of hers; small
as the ocean, big as alone.

They took her scissors,
her sterling silver compact...
most everything she owned –
locked up; the key thrown away.
Nothing sharp permitted here –
not in this place. Only glass
to break in emergency.

Papers, duly signed by my dad
and her GP. My mother –
sectioned. It was
nineteen-eighty- two,
and Alzheimer’s was
another word for ‘mad’.