Word now came,
my room was ready.
A nurse led us

down a long hallway
and my wife and Shade,
the executioners,

followed with my bags
to a clean room
of exact arrangement:

two identical blond dressers,
two plain beds,
two identical armchairs,

slightly worn,
the scene blanched
of former occupants.

My wife busied herself
and hung my favorite
landscape over the bed

and set an old snapshot
on the mantle to
remind me who I was

I could see a younger man
there and a woman, smiling
and in vigorous health

whose excess radiated
from them in tiny pulses.
I could see

but not remember.

On the other dresser
a similar snapshot.
Of the absent room-mate.

In the picture he is
standing in the sun
in shirt-sleeves,

an ordinary man,
middle-aged,
being photographed.

Next to him, also
in shirt-sleeves,
David Ben Gurion,

the prime minister
equally plain.
No other sign

of the room-mate.
Being led down the hall
by a nurse, no doubt.

Parting was not hard
for me that day since
my wife was coming back

the next morning, which
she did and took me for
a drive in the park

and we walked
in the spring flowers.

And the head nurse,
a bluff, good-natured
black woman came by

my room and introduced
herself by her first name.
I liked her at once

and gave her mine.
And after the paper
ran a story on me

I danced with the dark-eyed
singer who came on Fridays
and had a tender visit

with my brother,
as when we were boys
But I could not hold on.

I ate well yet became
gaunt and agitated
and could no longer be

trusted in the dining room
and had to have
my meals brought to me.

My absent room-mate
had come back, a small
harmless old man

but incontinent. I paid
no attention to him
except to his stench

at which I raged
and shouted.
And I expostulated

with my wife: " We've been
together fifty years
Why do I have to be here?

Aren't we husband and wife? "
Then my memory got worse.
I was now no longer able

to read, or to write my name
but only my wife knew.
God, how restless I was!

and menaced! I had to escape.
But I was afraid
I would be stopped

and questioned
at the front door.
At siesta time,

therefore, I climbed
over a wall and
wandered for hours through

black neighborhoods,

lost!

How can I
explain my confusion?
Women had to bathe

and dress me now,
overworked grandmothers,
poor, black,

whom in former years
I would have hailed
compassionately

but I was terrified
and raised my fist
when they approached.

" What's the matter?
Don't you trust us? "
said the head nurse,

the voice sure, steady.
I couldn't answer
" Don't you trust me ? " pages 162 & 163 missing
of old words
an old country

country:
ding! dong!

old heart
old God

steorfan