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Who is this woman that lies beside me?

She looks so frail, so old

That isn't the same person I married

The same wife, I used to hold.

As I feel no different

From how I did as a teen

But the world around me alters so quickly

Reality is handed over to a perplexing scene.

Today I walked for twenty minutes to the shops

And didn’t have a clue in how to get back

I sit for hours in front of the television most days

Constrained by the initiative, I now so badly lack.

As I can no longer recall words, names or dates

Yet alone why I placed the iron in the bureau drawer

Full of agitation and growing suspicion

Behind a wall of voices that impatiently ignore.

Shouting in my face as if I were deaf

Whilst patronizing my once acute mind

But if only this shadow stopped following me

The person everyone remembered is never far behind.

© Daniel North 2005