Drop-in centre. Photos Manuel Capurso, text Roisin Tierney (3/5)

© Manuel Capurso.

Vera by Roisin Tierney

Vera, eighty-something, sprightly yet,
lives with her daughter in her council flat.
She keeps it spick and span – immaculate.
Her short term memory’s gone, or going fast,
her grandchildren a blur.  She loves them all,
but cannot place a face.  Her keys are not
where she last laid them, the front door
flies open in the middle of the night.
She knows her husband’s dead these twenty years,
that they were happy, but can’t say what he did,
still manages to shop and use the stairs,
takes all her meds and likes to watch TV,
has only one perceptual delusion;
each night she sees a soldier in her room,
standing in the corner, leaning on
his rifle, looking towards her.
She thinks he’s real.  This does not disturb her.

© Roisin Tierney

All the poems in this series are from Dream Endings, by Roísin Tierney, Rack Press 2011, and used by permission.

N.B.: Editor’s note – the lady in Manuel’s photo is emphatically not the Vera of Roisin’s poem.