Nursing Home

Mommy De recognizes my diploma.

Her smile reaches her eyes, she parts her lips, 

and mumbles a string of words her mind

has tried to sort into a sentence—she’s almost as happy

about my degree as she was when I walked in the room.

I think of the day my mother received her Master’s  

from Penn, and I’m glad that my grandmother

could speak her joy clearly then. As pleased as I am

that she can spill messy, jubilant recognition

when I come to visit, I feel a little guilty that mom

has to call herself “Bethy,” to answer the inevitable

“Who are you,” coax a smile of semi-memory.  

The fact that Mommy De recalls my face, if not my name

makes me uneasy when I think of my uncle Conrad 

who is never “Henry,” “brother,” or another alias

used to mask the disease, just a man with a beard

who never stays for as long as he has driven to visit.

Even my aunt Annette, who shares that name with her mother,

lives in the same city and visits more often than me

is never someone Mommy De knows on sight.

I put my diploma away, produce graduation pictures

hesitantly, reluctant to identify three children to their mother.