Spirit Flickers

Spirit Flickers

Spirit flickers behind blurry eyes
Skin slack - features sharp
You gesture with arthritic hands,
blessing the air - a saint long gone.

For seconds we are familiar faces
You address us using wrong names

You drift in tangled wires of mind -
a confusion of the present and past.
Memories freed from the confines of time-
For seconds- we are familiar again.

(After Louisa Milligan 1908-2003)