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FATHER-SEQUENCE, by                    
First Line: My father has a lot of friendly enemies


for Gennaro Fontanella (1911-1970)

1.

My father had a lot of friendly enemies:
I especially remember one called Grossi
who also had hypertension and some other ailments, perhaps;
a runty monkey with a goofy smile
he was always talking to you about medicines
and remedies he, the authority, had tried,
taking a subtle satisfaction through
his management of other people's health
and perhaps even thinking, better him than me;
but then he died too.

2.

This morning I saw you suddenly
in one of my expressions casually
caught in the mirror
in a swift rebound, profoundly
shocked by its naked message: the sad cast
to your smile of the eternal optimist.
Can it be that I know you better now, having passed
nearly twenty years as a bit remote, a bit
alone with myself, a bit of an egotist?

3.

I find myself thinking of you at the age I am now,
grasping with a shudder the ruthlessness of time
and the little I have left, in '54
already four children to feed you would leave for work
on your Lambretta every morning
without an overcoat
with the pages of newspapers stuffed
under your jacket, trying to keep warm.

4.

You went away from us too soon
and perhaps today you are tired of being dead,
but look, through what I have done, just recently
you appear to have returned in another face
that has a bit of you
in it, and a bit of me.


Used by permission of Story Line Press.




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