A slow death, in eons of unremembered moments,
Like a dark star, she collapses into herself every day,
Fragments of her past memories intrude sometimes,
Incomprehensible now, like they are all in Russian.

This existence she hates more than life itself,
Flowing like an unending river, towards a sea,
Days of sleep, interrupted by family strangers,
Wearing her precious necklace and others’ clothes.

At times I am "Who?", until her son is introduced,
Which produces a "Happy to see you" smile, and
Complaints that no one ever comes to visit now,
She is living in a nightmare of empty spaces.

Her now ungraspable tranquillity, her living hell,
Punished for imagined sin, she now doubts God,
But wants to go home to Him, to ask "Why?”.
She believed the childhood promise of heaven.