I can wrap my mind around this. My Mother died of Alzheimer's disease. It was rapid and deadly. I would say that the poem feels and sounds more from the perspective of the caregiver for that is how I saw my Mother. She literally shut down, with only small glimpses of life hiding behind her eyes. When those glimpse showed up, she would quote the Bible or believe that she was back in the day when she was a child. Some times her look would frighten me, but she never appeared afraid even when she was standing in the middle of the road with oncoming rushing traffic. A bit confused as to what to do, but definitely not afraid. She also could not escape her destiny. She followed a line of women in our family that suffered from the same disease. Back then we called it senility or just plain old age.

Thank you so much for sharing this. I have not yet been able to write about it.