Paradoxical Lucidity
for my father
in the future we will say that you suffered Alzheimer’s
although suffer is not the right word
you stumbled you stuttered you were submerged
you lost your keys missed the exit forgot how to make change
could not lift your foot over the threshold into the shower
forgot why you held a toothbrush what the soap was for
every morning a new landscape of foreign grasses to navigate
you stood crying at 3 am in the pasture
you sit beneath your oil painting of ducks taking off in the sunset
in that god-awful recliner your brushes barely dry
and know nothing of yourself the artist the jewelry maker
your marksmanship with a gun and ask are you the girl who brings the lunch
and I am a lucid moment in a paradoxical world
Maureen Clark is a retired assistant professor of the University of Utah, where she taught writing for 20 years. She was the president of Writers @ Work 1999-2001, and the director of the University Writing Center from 2010-2014. Her poems have appeared in Bellingham Review, Colorado Review, Alaska Review, The Southeast Review, and Gettysburg Review, among others. Her first book, This Insatiable August, is forthcoming from Signature Books in Spring 2024.