Two Poems

Absence

Stay put I tell my dad, like a parent warning an impulsive child to behave
in her absence. I leave the car running, heat blowing, knowing he can’t follow me on his blown out knee even if he forgets why I left him or who I am or when I’ll return and I will not let him freeze
in my absence. Coatless

into the wind I cross the lot, halogen
lit, past freezing cars, parked without passengers, fingers stinging and clutching his prescription for pain. Inside, I follow

signs and more signs through a maze of make-up, of medicine, to the rear where I wait and keep waiting, while behind the counter

the pharmacist under bright lights is rushing, and then I am too, back toward the exit – but here he comes, limping through the electric door waving my coat sleeves open like a father tracking a forgetful child - like a father who won’t let me freeze.

Copyright 2013 by Kelly DuMar. Published in "Kindred," 2013 and "All These Cures," 2014 by Lit House Press. 

How He Asks (After Alzheimer’s)

Where did you come from? By this I mean what fills

your days and how did you lose me, I mean when did

I leave you and how did you find me somewhere?

Let’s go back to the beginning.

How did you get here? By this I mean tell me how I

brought you into this world and what you are doing

with the life you’ve been given?

Are you doing the wonderful I knew you could do?

There’s something you forgot. By this I mean tell me

the news of all the everyone we have back where who

matters so much and when can I see them to tell them

how whistling and crackling and sunny they are?

Are you leaving?

Let’s go back to the beginning.

Where did you come from?

Did you come in a car?

Do you know the way home? Take me home now so you

will see how we got here from there and by that I mean do

you know how much your life matters to me?

Copyright 2014 by Kelly DuMar. Published in The Milo Review, 2014, and and All These Cures, by Lit House Press, 2014; reprinted in The Maine Review, 2014