Anxiety of Influence

Dad, you were in love with sleep

in particular the fully-clothed daytime nap

that personal domestic tradition you created.

It was rest, prophylaxis, repose.

On weekdays, an elegant even sensible way

to be average, to pare your output

and to not shame your social worker peers.

Comfort food was your secular sacrament:

the flesh-colored specialty hot dogs

bought from Carl the German grocer

that split lengthwise when boiled,

potatoes in almost any form,

peas, redolent of childhood and

always some baked Hostess treat.

A son and brother to start

you were a seminarian

a counter-espionage agent

a judge's personal bailiff

a failed grocery store owner

a social worker

a husband and father in manhood.

My imagination inflamed and choices shaped

by your stories that needed no embellishment:

coffins filled with bootleg whiskey in a hearse at night

a grave dug in bitter cold and then lain in

a Nazi agent caught who swears vengeance

a Cardinal interceding for a vicious mobster

an alpha politician peeing on a rival's casket.

Now that I've reached your age at death

I nap fully clothed when I can at midday

but usually with my head down at my desk.

I make healthier choices for food comfort

savor memories made and risks taken

in jungles and foreign cities, in the air and underwater

readying myself, some day, to lie in a grave without regret.