Every Sunday afternoon
I curled up on a couch and watched,
While he sat on the couch trying
To remember who he was, or who I was.
I listened to his five stories again and again-
repeated and predicted conversations
He did not remember me;
I did not remember him as anyone other
my sunday man.

For fifteen years of Sundays
me and my sunday man enjoyed
a peaceful respite.
So when he collapsed and an ambulance
took him away,
It felt  suddenly, unexpectedly, and surprisingly
Shocking
he was gone,


the doctor kindly said that we did a yomen's job
and could do no more; His frontal lobe was gone.
They transferred him to a nursing home

The last Sunday I saw him; he knew me, for
One brief moment, he smiled and winked and said
He would meet me upstairs with the big guy.
Then the smile closed to a vacant stare and
He was gone again.