His feet shuffle
and serve an ace,
in his mind; perpetual
ping-pong.
His slippers collect stones,
knees quiver below white linen,
beneath an ashen Asian face.
The paddle in his hand
ricochets in the air,
of Olympic dreams,
in senility.
His carer,
cloth wrinkled around his torso,
is an apparition,
a reflected shadow,
paddling the net.
He could be a ball-boy – the carer,
in the vapid mind of the
demented,
the white sphere of dementia
collected by his silent hands.
Each tree and shrub
is a spectator, wind cheering
in the eaves,
even I – a pond skater in the pool
of his mind.
Imagine the misted surface broken
by reeds:
this is his life.
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