She always liked organising:
Christmas, birthdays, the children’s toys.

He used to sit and watch, admiring
the way she never forgot a thing.

All neatly packed away
and labelled in indelible ink.
For a rainy day, she used to say.

He didn’t expect her brain
to file her memories into drawers
then throw away the keys.

The top drawer was the first to go:
the one where she stored yesterday’s walk in the park
and the cardigan he bought for her birthday that week.

Then other things began to slip away:
their grandson’s birth, that holiday to Greece,
their wedding day.

Doctors say the bottom drawer will be the last to go:
the one where she is again a little girl;
his face a stranger’s in her house,

where he sits and watches time remove
layer after layer of Russian dolls.