The Fathers

They are so much older than us
that they live only in photographs,
where they crowd the pavements
or jaywalk between tramcars.

We barely recognize them, whose
shirts are without collars
and whose waistcoats are chained
to their own buttons –

they are all strangers in suits,
as if every day was a Sunday
where you keep your cap on
and worship the god machinery.

Even today old men, their sons,
preserve their hand-me-downs,
keep faith with pocket watches
at well-attended funerals,

raise old-fashioned hats to wives,
widows, roomfuls of daughters,
their heads full of old street maps
and the long-culverted rivers.