Zombie Town                                                                                                        

There’s a zombie in Fairview
and I fear it’s taken up residence
at my grandmother’s farm.
Sneaking across the borders of the county
and finding a home right inside her mind,
Dropping plaques throughout that
drive her nerve cells apart
and make room for fiber tangles
to cultivate swiftly around her
otherwise healthy cells,
Leaving her without synapses
that link in a way that
she can remember me.

All of this is only a
microscopic alteration
forming this disconnect,
with an inconceivable
consequence for her life.

We hear the words
progressive
untreatable
atrophy

What we see is
hand-wringing
misplaced ring
trouble swallowing
unstable walking
forgetful

Forgetting
to wash
to eat
where she is
to sleep
to wake
who I am

What does your skull do
if your brain shrinks?
I feel a need to know.
6th leading cause of death,
this zombie is,
and so strong it is
the only one that’s incurable.

49 minutes ago the headline
of an online newspaper read,
“Woman with Alzheimer’s Disease found safe”
And I thought, Safe?
How can she be safe if the zombie exists within?

With 100 billion neurons
in the brain,
one would think enough could
find their way to one another,
even if it took sneaking past a zombie
now and then,
to link together

and know who I am.