I got home early
this afternoon
from my unanticipated
last day
on the job.

My mother,
who’s fought the creep of dementia
for a while now,
was startled
when I came through the door.

She looked me in the eye
and couldn’t speak,
having at last lost my name
the way I lost the burrs and edges
I cut from incomplete miniatures
one at a time
eight hours a day
five days a week
for fifteen years,

perfecting
the visions of men
who had to look down at a paper
to address me
when they told me
to disappear.