The Minders

A Poem by David Mason

The old man wandered off in his underwear,
stopped by a couple out walking their dog
who asked his name, which only confused him more.
Meanwhile we had panicked. We took a jog
up the wrong hill, all the way to the park,
hoping to catch him before he was hit by a car
or fell off an embankment in the dark
or went too far and simply disappeared.

The walkers brought him close enough to home
that we could fetch him, wrap him in a jacket
and tell him he was a silly boy. He shook
from the cold. We got him dressed and fed and combed
without him putting up much of a racket.
When he fell asleep we both took a hard look.

The thing is, it was just like having a baby boy,
except this baby wasn’t going to grow
or laugh at opening a Christmas toy
or wear a cape and give us his magic show.
We’d seen him when he met a pretty girl:
“Look at that one,” he’d say. “She’s got it all.”
His mind went spinning on a Tilt-A-Whirl,
but not the kind you’d ride at a carnival.

Now every room was strange as every street
and he was shaken by an idling bus
he thought went north when it was heading south.
The day neared when he could not think to eat,
when even speech would parrot one of us,
the words like gravel dripping from his mouth.

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Bust of an Old Man with Flowing Beard and White Sleeve, Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1630, Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

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