Poet's Choice

Nearly 30 years after my daddy's death, I can still miss him with throat-clenching force. As a child, I shadowed him through pool halls, but -- with time and alcohol -- he eventually dwindled into a form that fit nowhere except on a barstool at the Veterans' Club. Maybe vets of that great generation created a distance inside them that distanced their kids, a sadness that's made for some great poems.

Edward Hirsch (who once squired this column into print) portrays a father who sold containers while himself containing mysteries. His "Special Orders" conjures the man at work: "sawdust clinging to his shoes./Give me back his tape measure and his keys/his drafting pencil . . ./his daydreams on lined paper."

I don't understand this uncontrollable grief.

Whatever you had that never fit,

whatever else you needed, believe me,

my father, who wanted your business,

would squat down at your side

and sketch you a container for it.

In "Preserved," Michael Milburn captures the slot in a man's life when he lives wedged between an aging father and a blooming son. Here we see the poet running video footage of his once dynamic father, now in decline and lying on a sofa:

PRESERVED

When Nancy brings the video out,

years of brittle spools copied onto

one cassette, we all watch.