I was sitting in the park
One day
When an old man
Came up to me
Are you my son?
He asked
I smirked
And told him no
That I wasn’t his son
Awfully sorry about that
He said
That his Alzheimer’s
Had been wreaking havoc
Of late
There really can’t be many things
Much worse than that
I thought
Worse than losing your mind
Slowly but EVER so surely
The poor fella took a seat beside me
And opened up a bag of sandwiches
I don’t even remember who
Gave these to me
He said
He smiled the saddest smile
I’ve ever seen
You’ll remember
I told him
But I didn’t know that he would
Remember
So sad to see it
To see a man who might’ve
Served with the army
Medals on the mantelpiece
He knows nothing about
Too away with the birds
That’s not a nice way to put it
But it’s the true thing
Or he might’ve been
A pilot
Soaring on over a thousand peoples
Problems
Without a care in the world
Of his own
Other than landing safely
And getting on home
To his kids
And wife
I was a shop-keeper
He said
A very popular shop-keeper
In fact
He tried to smile again
I thought
He mustn’t have done this
In an age
The sweets were so very popular
And the kids
All ages really
Loved coming in to see me
Some stole
But I don’t like to remember those things
Funny that
Next
He looked closer at me
Sorry, do I know you?
No, but you were just telling me
About your shop-keeping days
My shop-keeping what?
Who are you?!
He was having a bad turn
So I got up
And walked in the other direction
Maybe he’ll remember me tomorrow
And we can pick up where were
Left off
Maybe I get to hop on that plane
With him
To soar high in the sky
And forget about his worries for a time
But that’s just it
Forgetting is the problem