Poetry by Anne Bower
She’d told us the genetics,
smiled into the words
as if Alzheimer’s was just
some trip to the beach.
Now she can’t drive,
husband brings her to class,
where she’s
blank-faced at first,
repeats name of disease
that’s taking her mind.
Frowns as we start,
yet her body glides to tai chi.
A pause. She shakes her head,
not knowing what comes next.
A breath, shudder,
yet years of practice surge
her forward. She steps, turns,
gestures easy, smooth.
She’s swimming in a calm sea,
grins with delight.
Anne Bower lives in rural Vermont, teaching tai chi and training tai chi instructors. She has three chapbooks to her credit and poems published in The Raven’s Perch, Gemini Magazine, Cool Beans, Nine Cloud Journal, Plainsong, and many other journals and anthologies.
