The Big ‘D’

Old and frail,
a woman sits alone
tending to her crossword.

Eight letters;
eight letters.
No, it’s gone, it escaped her,
the persistent disorder of mental process.

She lives in this house alone
save a cat, a few mice
and some creaks and cracks.

A house once filled with
generations of horses, nurses
and hide-and-seek,
but they dissipate —
Faces fall behind the veil.

Marauding memories masked
by those things that came before,
coalescing the loss of cognate
of a previously sound mind.

An eight-letter word
from an octogenarian
doesn’t seem like much;
but as we live, exist in hope.
Past is faded anecdote.