Two Days Apart

We'd call him today on his birthday, two days before mine.
I don't know what I found to say all those years ago
to a man I saw for 3 weeks a year
who lived 14 states away,
who was 66 years older than I,
but we'd turn over the egg timer and we'd call.
Happy Birthday!
Thank you, dear, he'd say,
dee-ah he'd say,
then nothing I remember,
then my parents would talk
and then he'd say
In two days it will be my turn to call you.

He'd call.
We'd chuckle over the fact we'd just spoken
two days before.
Happy Birthday, dee-ah,
Thank you, Grandpa,
and then nothing I remember.

I remember more as we grew older together.
There was more than just the yearly trip to the country general store
where he'd buy me stationery or pens.
I'd helped him move from his apartment where he'd lived with my grandmother
into a new one, the first place he every decorated on his own.
He knew my young children. He stayed in my house
when we had a heat wave and the fans whirred in the living room.
We played gin and he let me win. We wrote letters.
I brought him to the hospital when he'd come to visit and my parents
had gone to dinner.
I flew to be with him when he died.

Today they pin poppies to lapels,
and put flags on headstones.
Today, I just think of him
and imagine he'll call.