He Sleeps A Lot

He Sleeps A Lot Again,
He sleeps in his chair.
This man who does not remember
that I sat there
forty years ago,
nestled by his side
when he came home at noon
for lunch and a nap.
He sleeps a lot, you know.
This man who has no clue
as to who I am,
although I do remind him of someone
he knew once somewhere in his past.
It's nice though,
to be known as that nice man
who visits now and then,
as opposed to the son
who, even at his best,
was a disappointment and a burden.

He recalls memory clips...
from the war....
the war in which he learned
to talk to men clearly and be understood,
something I could never equal
when he used to know my name.
And the factory....
he still thinks he has meetings to attend
and projects to complete
where the big machines drone,
even if he can't remember eating breakfast,
or the room in which he has lived
for the past year at the home.
He asks, again,
Who is that nice man
sitting in the livingroom?
to which my mother replies
yet a tenth or twentieth time,
that is Edward, our son....
he has come to visit.
He sleeps a lot,
this childless father of mine.
(Robert E. Bricker 11/16/16-11/04/04)
EJBRICKER c 1999