Mix-ups and Underbelly

Sometimes she speaks fluently, sometimes she stutters. She feels connected to her visitors, but doesn't know how they relate to her or to each other. She forgets a great deal, but she remembers that which absorbs her. She keeps saying she is sad because she hasn't had any babies. They retort, again and again, we are your babies. She says, I think I'll adopt one, and they laugh and throw it back: how could you adopt one when you need people to look after you? She thinks she lives upstairs. She is sure there is an attic. Shuffled, beyond the control of buttons. She is forced to improvise; the habitual is crooked. She weeps and weeps, believing her father has just died. He is in the next room and she has neglected him. They claim she will never learn anything new again. But she does, and last week did better in her memory test.