Vicariously, Politically Incorrect

During the football games these men are doing other things
Which they deem more important because they
Have no choice
Or because they feel trapped in a routine
Or they can’t face their lives
Without self medicating
Poverty, low self esteem, broken soul

Negros and the night watchman are more similar in their shame they
Have no choice
Polacks may be alcoholics or nursing away problems, or a hard day at work
They may be the most “ashamed”

These men are proud in both senses of the word
Proud of their sons
Proud men—marked by constraining or exacting self-respect

Irony
Because these men provide for their families
They can’t be with their families
Why is the Pollack not with his wife
Or his son’s football game?

Dreams of the heroes they wish
They were to their families
Dreaming of the heroes they want their sons
To be
In the football game
Living vicariously through their sons
Who have freedom and valor
And possibility and opportunity

The sons’ power and determination—beauty of soul—contrasts the father’s
hopelessness and shame
The night watchman is ruptured, his soul has been crushed,
His pride and hope have burst and drained out of him
Over many years

Women are starved not for food, which their hardworking husbands provide,
But for companionship, “love”
Beautiful lines

No one thinks their activities or professions
Are heroic and no one, not even their families
Respect or thank them
This absence of gratitude is like
Those winter Sundays
Even though the workers families probably appreciate the hard work the fathers
expound
They don’t acknowledge
Just as the son whose father warms
The house for him every morning.
Aug. 15, 2002