Shipwrecked

No man is an island, unless dementia
has shelled his character
to the bare bones, which stand
like a blackened stump
on a rocky outcrop
from which the tide recedes
daily.

He finds himself no more
surrounded by living shores
but high and dry
with the wrack and jetsam,
while fickle seas
bring only reluctant calls
from distant friends and memories,

the recent having drifted away.