Portrait of the Artist with Alzheimer’s

If, as I suspect is true,
each fragment of a point of view
is holographic – offers all –
my father’s sketch bewilders. Call

the portrait colorful or gray,
but I recall the vivid day
he drew it – bright crisp afternoon
in fall – his infant laughter soon

recoiling into concentration
as his pencil flew: a conflagration
in the right side of his brain.
By then, you see, he couldn’t train

the left side to obey him; speech
was quite beyond his reach.
But lines he tumbled onto paper
profligately grew – and taper

now to this drained recollection:
full of the strange circumspection
ten long years – or were they short? –
can bring. Perhaps it was a sport

for him – the last he would enjoy –
to wield his carbon and employ
his naked talent one more time.
Allegedly, the face was mine:

Cocteau, El Greco, sadly spun.
Did he remember he had reared a son?
I wonder if he wondered how.
I guess it doesn’t matter now.

Guy Kettelhack