Red Tide

The golden bowl is almost broken,
though it still supports a fine hat.
Mom slips slowly and surely out to sea,
lost memory’s red tide obliterating
any beachhead we make. So be it,
said the prophet at his desk;
and so be it, refrained her sons
and daughters in their eagerness
to avert the rising stream of decline.
Tonight, she eats her French fries
like her epicurean self, chomping
them to a leftover tip, forming a pile
on her plate―in the manner
of eating prawns, we all suppose.