A cento is a “patchwork” poem comprised of lines from other poets' poems with only some punctuation changed. I post new centos periodically to share what I'm reading and keep the creative wheels turning. Citations follow each poem. This is January 2020's installment:

Elegy for Memory (A Dementia Love Story)

On reflected blue, you see him sink and rise again - startled and confused.
How the heart melts, and the tears run down!
& he, still all the stories & all the gaps
furrows his bandaged brow to think, says,
”just to wake up next to you—
our shadows stammering out a waltz . . . "

1 "The Cardinal” from page 49 of The Presence of Absence by Sandy Coomer
2 “A Curse for a Nation” from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
3 “Granddaddy was the Neighborhood” from pages 9 and 10 of Wild Hundreds by Nate Marshall
4 “Elegy: My Brother at 18” from page 13 of Alloy by Jan Bottiglieri
5 “And Then, I’ll Know It’s You” by Marjorie Q. Kerr as published in Expressions from Englewood Volume V
6 “Elegy with Roller Skates” from page 23 of Blood Orange by Angela Narciso Torres