Our Fathers

So we'll never hear Sinatra
the way our fathers did, who wander the rooms
in their pajamas wondering where in the world,
where? And someone says, No,
no thank you, sick of listening to strangers
in the street, sick of coming home in doubt
or in time for the familiar meal, the usual
complaints, fingers extended as the polish dries.
Our fathers. Alone or together alone
with the new wives that never took.
And the coffee by the window. And the neighbor's
dogs chasing deer down the driveway.
The arrival of mail and the afternoon light, a bruise
in the birches crowding the house.
Our fathers, for whom the days cannot pass
slowly enough, who find their old hats
behind the shoe boxes and photo albums
and say, Why not? For Frank before Las Vegas,
for DiMaggio and Bogart. They say, The evening
is wider than a mile, though of course nothing
is waiting on the other side,
nothing but night.

James Harms