He lives in the pit of my stomach,
this long-dead avatar of my real father,
whose residue still murmurs.
He haunts every new project,
hanging over me like smoke after fireworks,
to choke a boy no longer small
who waited ‘til the night before the essay was due,
or the poster or the book report.       
“You’re cutting close, aren’t you?  

My father was at our family store well before opening
before the customers,
and stuck around past closing if any remained—  
         (the memorable Sunday afternoon
        when someone came in at closing
         time with a box full of those vacuum
        tubes to power a 1960s TV,
        to check them out on our “U-TEST-EM” machine,
         a supposed moneymaker my father
         had installed in our little convenience
         deli. We had to wait ‘til he was done).  

He was a good dad, I hasten to add,
but his shade hovers diligent
in the doorway of my imagination.
I’m told to tolerate him,
to negotiate, cajole, bargain,
to tell him where to go–
but he springs from love
and it endures.