Fathers
My father may be often in my dreams Yet (since he died when I was young) play parts Or be himself — and stay unrecognized.
In any case dreaming often modifies The features of the characters we know, Though usually telling us who's really meant, Like useful footnotes to an allegory. This morning speckled foam fell in the basin: Watching my father shave came flooding back From over fifty years. His cut-throat razor, Black beard, seemed things of fascinated love— And now replace the visage and his speech.
Did he imagine (as I sometimes do) His son would one day reach the age of sixty, Himself being almost ipso facto dead?
Worse, in his final illness did he think How he would leave a foolish child of eight, Himself being hardly out of folly's years?
ROY FULLER
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