Dementia

by Felix Jung

If I could choose the illness that would finish me, I’d want
the one that slowly eats away at memory, to lose the splinters
of my life a little at a time. I’d be a tree in Fall, my mind
a hearty oak that spent a lifetime growing strong, to wind up
losing leaves: a smattering at first and then, with every breeze,

an easy exodus. If I could choose the illness that would finish
you, I’d choose the same. What more could Heaven be? To wake
in one another’s arms. To meet you, new, each morning, flirt
and fall in love again. Each day. Each blank and blessed day.