Unremembered years

I remember nothing of it now
but there were years you fed me
spooning soft rusks into my cuckoo beak of hunger,
watching me grow, muscles filling, skin taut and elastic,
bone and cartilage expanding
to fill my place in the universe.

But now I feed you, 
cheering you like a child as spoon by spoon,
with infinite slowness, smooth yoghurt 
makes the perilous journey
from mouth to epiglottis.

Your eyes are dull, unfocused.
Your mind is much the same, 
the last remaining words lie scattered,
flickering on some neural cobweb in the brain.

And so our roles reverse, 
but yours is not the cuckoo beak of appetite I knew.
You are wren who takes her drinks in tiny sips 
syringed with caution lest you choke.

Your muscles do not fill your skin,
and ligaments shrink back to bone, 
and every day the space you take diminishes.
The universe creeps closer in 
to fill the gaps you leave.

Once you helped to grow me into life. 
Now I help your shrinking back to death, 
trying to ease the journey, spoon by spoon, 
yet never knowing if i just prolong the pain. 

It won't be long before my turn will come. 
I hope my route is swift and sure 
and not as torturous as yours.

(c) Alistair McNaught