Alzheimer’s translation: Acrostic

Rain [fumbling] . . . never mind. [click]
Rain—Father’s voice message

Field guide to his message: a tree of
underripened fruit;
much-branched, voice
bristle-tipped, thin;
longing to open
into bloom; short-stalked,
nounless; a second-long
glabrous moan.

Neighboring species with a stack of
empty pallets,
veily rain of corn silk off a balcony’s
edge, chains
rattling a flagpole at night. Past

maturation. Found
in rocky soil. A mind fumbling toward
never. Bark
dry. Bitter odor. Been

cut of words. Knows the
less he speaks
into air, the less
can be taken from his junked and fissured and sunken-veined
kingdom.