from An Alzheimer's Marriage

Who would have thought
that Alzheimer’s
could knit
the warmest
and best parts
of our struggle
together
into a blanket
and, like a prayer,
hold it over us
until
morning
comes?
-Esther Altshul Helfgott


Written after reading Margaret Atwood's poem "Habitation"
in last week's Poeming the Silence class.


Habitation

Marriage is not
a house or even a tent

it is before that, and colder:


the edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert
the unpainted stairs
at the back where we squat
outside, eating popcorn

the edge of the receding glacier

where painfully and with wonder
at having survived even
this far

we are learning to make fire
- Margaret Atwood

"Habitation" by Margaret Atwood,
from Selected Poems II. © Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987.