Sigret, his wife, an Austrian woman
made one of those nervous waves
her eyes leaning, inching
forward into conversation. She said
she had to put Julian
in a nursing home.
It’s a place where he will
get the care he needs. Julian has lost
his memory, he can’t connect
one thought to another,
his broad smile blooming
clueless sails for eyes. It’s not
what he deserves, she said,
in her chocolate dust accent.
We had just moved in
still sleeping on a mattress
on the floor, when
they stopped by
with a tray of fresh tomatoes,
parsley and chive sprigs
painted like feathers on the plate
He liked telling us
what nice guys we were
and that first Christmas, she invited us
over to their house to see their tree,
glowing from candlelight
like something out of the movies,
Julian standing to the side
with fire extinguisher in hand.
The ornaments, she said,
were the last things her mother took
just hours ahead of the Nazis.
Summer and Julian and Sigret
have not made their usual visits to our garden.
They haven’t strolled down the street
at dusk with grandchild in tow. She sweeps
the driveway herself, her flame of orange hair
bobbing in the afternoon sun.
The last time I saw Julian
he stood next to a shopping cart
in the grocery store
unsure of why he was there.
It was as unfamiliar to him
as the first day of school.
Now I picture him
wandering the halls of his new home
God-blessing the staff, talking endlessly,
in strings of jabber as sweet as taffy, staring
at banal prints of farmyards on pastel walls
that remind him of a story about something.
