John Wagner
Anything My Father Planned
Made so much sense in solitude.
In his favorite diner, a booth in the back,
A bowl of hot chowder, cracker dust
Still stuck on his spoon, and the Sports section
Under his elbow, he’d plan a game to the Polo Grounds.
Slow goes the traffic on 25A, heading home from work
In rush hour, the sun a speck in his rearview mirror,
He’d spot the neon tube in the tavern window
And go inside, where he would join
An assembly line of guys like him,
And from a stool at the end of the bar,
He’d take out his trusty notebook
And map out our vacation to one
Of the lakes in New England.
On Saturday, his errands took an hour,
But the time it took would take an hour more.
The radio on in the car, a football game
From South Bend, he’d drive down to the harbor,
Watch the boats get slapped around in their rickety slips,
And dream of the Golden Dome in autumn.
* * *
We never went to baseball games,
And vacations we would spend in Rockaway,
At the beach house of my mother’s parents.
I never went to Notre Dame, football not the game
For me, despite the down-and-outs he’d throw
In the backyard till the sun went down
And Happy Days came on.
The year he died, we found a will
Up in the attic, handwritten
In the notebook he used for all his plans.
Buried at sea is what he wanted, his ashes spread
On Long Island Sound, out by Sand City,
Where once he’d been a lifeguard.
But Mother had a family plot, St. Patrick’s,
On the hill above the harbor,
And that’s where he, and much of what
He planned, lie buried in peaceful solitude.
