Sacrosanct

My mother’s Aunt Ida began to have no memory before I was bornMy mother took my toddler-aged older sister to visit Aunt Ida one last time     neither Aunt Ida    nor toddler would remember itThe last meal at Aunt Ida’s was eaten on used plates stained with egg yolk         they drank    from delicate teacups with bright carmine-red old-lady lipstick smudged on the rimsThe dishes were put away filthy as was      Aunt Ida asked again if my mother had eaten yetAs if their linen napkins were not caked with grease and crumbs     dotted with blood spots    from Aunt Ida’s unkempt gumsTo my mother it was important to have something happen     even in the absence of memory:        this the gift of her presence to her oblivious Aunt Ida

All her childhood my mother presupposed her family’s memories in evident lineal scars:

        insuppressible tremors                     chronic dysesthesia                                        perpetual coughs

Each affliction insufficiently hidden by the conventional methods:

        morning inebriation                          early evening stupor                                                afternoon cruelty

My mother begins to have no memory     or rather     she remembers other ways things happenedMy mother is no longer tethered to facts or sequenceMy mother is only sure it is important to know something happened      even in the absence ofmemory:                                        this the gift of repression she gives to her diminished self.