Three Words

I've always wondered if you love me.
You've said the words, of course.
So silly to ask, after two kids,
ten cats, and fifty years
of pulling the plow together.

But down in my basement,
where maggots of doubt
bloat and squirm
in the emptiness of 3 a.m.,
I've wondered.

This morning, the nurses report
you were frantic all night,
thrashed about in your snake pit
of tubing and wires,
cried in terror and despair,
"Who are these people?"
and "Why am I here?"

You twist in the bed sheets still
as the monitors beep
and the medicines drip.
You're so tiny, so frail,
bruised and beneedled,
gazing enthralled
at the beigeness of walls,
hands lashed to the rails
lest in Alzheimer's nightmare
you rip out a tube.

I touch your arm. Your fingers
unclench from the rails;
you smile and murmur,
"Is that you?"