Legacies Poem by Phillip Ellis

The sun is up, but hidden by overcast
skies, by the time you farewell your father, wave
away the taxi. Then you turn, head towards
a bowl of wheat bran and milk, and green tea
and apple juice, no sugar. You would have joked
with him, that you're sweet enough, but he is gone
from his embrace of you, and a choked, 'I love
you, son, ' and the much earlier 'I am proud
of you.'
And something strikes you enough to think
this poem, the way, when he took that photograph
of his baby child, you tilted your head. He
said that he does the same, then spoke of the time
he stood at the hall's fireplace (it could have been
the markets) and he thought that his father stood
behind him, and he turned, expecting his dad.

But his father, then, was years dead. And he had
stood in the same way by a fireplace; dad said
he inherited parts of his father, and
you've inherited parts of him. And, as you
turn inside, closing the front screen door behind
you, in turn, you cannot help but think of this
thought, this question: how many generations
of men are bodied through you both, right here, now?