It was about seven years <br />after her breakdown <br />which she could not remember, and <br />which I could not forget <br />that one day <br />as I was creaming and powdering her <br />more intimately than I ever expected to as a man to his mother, <br />she turned to me and said - <br />inching her way <br />with supreme heroic human effort <br />out of the black and midnight subsoil maze <br />of dementia - said <br />carefully, enquiringly <br />as if to establish a relevant fact, <br /> <br />'Are we related? ' <br /> <br />And I knew not how to answer... <br /> <br />Then after some few days <br />I found a way to ease that pain: <br />as I creamed and powdered <br />the soreness under her still fine womanly breasts <br />at a hundred and two years of age <br />I said quietly <br />to her uncomprehending memory, <br />'beloved stranger...' <br /> <br />it wasn't a joke that she could share, but <br />it helped a little.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-beloved-stranger/
