Angela Narciso Torres

After the Ambulance

Carpenter ants picked the T-bone clean.

    The dog’s leash tautened toward

          a square of sun.

A hallway lamp wavered.

     Slice of lit motes through

          the cracked bedroom door.

Her slipper under the bed, another on the armchair.

     On the shell comb, a single strand.

          Her blue robe still damp.

*

a narrow bed in an endless

row of beds tucked tight

like chalk-white pills

cocooned in plastic

no visitors no cellphone no

end to night but the nurse

who relayed messages

telegraphic—send blue

bathrobe Saint Jude

rosary lime-flavored

Jell-O chenille slippers

boar bristle brush

*

            why am I here?    

pressed in her suitcase

between terrycloth and silk

            where is my husband?     

on a prescription slip, scribbled

in her physician scrawl

            when will I go home?

barely three days before 

the words slowed to a trickle

Alzheimer’s

there was a piano she loved

   cherubs carved on rosewood

hands ripple over yellowed keys

    she nods off, chin to chest

do you want to lie down?      no

   under the palms in a blue housedress

what is your name?    she asks

   again       cherubs playing violins

sunlight slips behind ferns

Prelude and Fugue

Something of late November

   sifting through a window

brings back this prelude—

   two voices blend, I lean

into the keys, draw back

   when the voices part.

How the body remembers—

    Señora V in a floral sundress,

rose talcum, hand soft

   on the curve of my spine

imprinting what she knew

   of love and time.

How could I know  

   what those notes would mean

decades of preludes ahead.

Four Years After Diagnosis

Suddenly, rain. Our heads

  bowed together like monks

in this hot green place.

   I study the slow script

of her movements. The cross

   and uncross of her legs,

fingers forking together,

   pulling apart. Secret dialect

of her face—a firefly flick

   in the iris, lips curling

like kelp. Speak, mother.

   Your daughter is listening.

Edward Schwarzschild