Three Words
Kathryn Jones
January 4, 2026
Remember these three words,
the neurologist tells us:
Mirror. Tulip. Baseball.
I repeat them in my mind,
commit them to memory.
A thing that reflects what
we look like, not who we are.
An early spring flower.
An all-American sport.
My husband nods and
repeats the words aloud:
Mirror. Tulip. Baseball.
More questions for the memory test:
Day of the week? Month? Year?
He gets the first two right.
Then simple instructions:
Draw a clock with numbers.
Copy some geometric figures.
Then the three words come up again.
Do you remember them, the doctor asks.
Blank stare. A long pause.
I don’t know, my husband replies.
I want to shout them:
Mirror! Tulip! Baseball!
Months later, he doesn’t remember
the day of the week, month, or year.
He doesn’t remember what we did
yesterday, what we talked about today,
what we had planned for tomorrow.
I try to help him remember
even though it cuts us both inside.
Yes, we are married. Yes, I live here.
Yes, I will stay and take care of you
because I know who you are and were.
I will remember for both of us.
Mirror. Tulip. Baseball.
Kathryn Jones is a poet, journalist, and essayist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Texas Monthly, Texas Highways, and the Texas Observer. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including TexasPoetryAssignment.com, Unknotting the Line: The Poetry in Prose (Dos Gatos Press, 2023), Lone Star Poetry (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2023), The Senior Class: 100 Poets on Aging (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024); and in her chapbook, An Orchid’s Guide to Life (Finishing Line Press, 2024), and the forthcoming collection The Solace of Wild Places (Lamar University Literary Press, 2025). She was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2016 and lives on a ranch near Glen Rose, Texas.
