Not Forgotten

Mum sat in the twilight of her room, staring ahead, arthritic fingers twisted around themselves, trembling, lips moving but emitting no sound.

‘Hello Mum!’

I tried to be cheerful but there was no response, and I couldn’t read her expression in the gloom, so I switched on the standard lamp that stood next to her armchair.

‘Now I can see you better, Mum. No point sitting in the dark.’

Her expression remained unchanged, hands still in knots, so I bent down to kiss her cheek. She turned to face me, her lips pressed on mine and, as I pulled away to look at her, she smiled as if she remembered my lips.

‘Forget what they have kissed, Mum, as long as they can still smile.’

She looked at me and said clearly, ‘I remember your kisses,’ and retreated into her mind, reclaimed by dementia.

Kim M. Russell, 16^th February 2026

It’s Prosery Monday at the dVerse Poets Pub and Mish has given us a line from a Toni Morrison poem to include in our 144-word prose. Mish reminds us that we may break up the line with punctuation and capitalization, add words to the beginning or end, but we cannot insert words within the line.

The line Mish has chosen is from her poem ‘Eve Remembering’: Lips forget what they have kissed.