UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/SARA MCNULTY


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY - 11/2011

SARA McNULTY

For George

Good-hearted, a gentle man,
George cared for his wife
ailing of Alzheimer’s
for many years. No one else
was permitted to lighten his burden;
he would not allow it.
Responsibility for beloved
wife rested with him, assuring
no danger of her being left alone
where she was wont to wander
where her mind urged her feet to travel.

Elderly now, George’s own needs
unmanageable, he is forced to leave his home
of fifty-four years. Diagnosis: Dementia.
He clutches at her photos pasted
in books, fixed in his head. Loathe
to lose the glow of his gem, he lingers
there for a time, to hold fast
his past in a pocket of his mind.

Sara McNulty is a poet-at-home transplant from New York to Oregon. Her wish is to have her poetry touch a nerve in others whether joy, sadness, or a sense of having a comrade in arms.

Sara has been published in Flashquake; Still Crazy; Writers Digest 79th Annual Poetry Competition; Fifth Annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards; Poetsespresso; Melisma; and The Oregonian.