To My Father's Business

Leo bends over his desk   

Gazing at a memorandum   

While Stuart stands beside him   

With a smile, saying,   

"Leo, the order for those desks   

Came in today   

From Youngstown Needle and Thread!"   

C. Loth Inc., there you are   

Like Balboa the conqueror   

Of those who want to buy office furniture   

Or bar fixtures   

In nineteen forty in Cincinnati, Ohio!   

Secretaries pound out   

Invoices on antique typewriters—   

Dactyllographs   

And fingernail biters.   

I am sitting on a desk   

Looking at my daddy   

Who is proud of but feels unsure about   

Some aspects of his little laddie.   

I will go on to explore   

Deep and/or nonsensical themes   

While my father's on the dark hardwood floor   

Hit by a couple of Ohio sunbeams.   

Kenny, he says, some day you'll work in the store.   

But I felt "never more" or "never ever"   

Harvard was far away   

World War Two was distant   

Psychoanalysis was extremely expensive   

All of these saved me from you.   

C. Loth you made my father happy   

I saw his face shining   

He laughed a lot, working in you   

He said to Miss Ritter   

His secretary   

"Ritt, this is my boy, Kenny!"   

"Hello there Kenny," she said   

My heart in an uproar   

I loved you but couldn't think   

Of staying with you   

I can see the virtues now   

That could come from being in you   

A sense of balance   

Compromise and acceptance—   

Not isolated moments of brilliance   

Like a girl without a shoe,   

But someone that you   

Care for every day—   

Need for customers and the economy   

Don't go away.   

There were little pamphlets   

Distributed in you   

About success in business   

Each about eight to twelve pages long   

One whole series of them   

All ended with the words   

"P.S. He got the job"   

One a story about a boy who said,   

"I swept up the street, Sir,   

Before you got up." Or   

"There were five hundred extra    catalogues   

So I took them to people in the city who have a dog"—   

P.S. He got the job.   

I didn't get the job   

I didn't think that I could do the job   

I thought I might go crazy in the job   

Staying in you   

You whom I could love   

But not be part of   

The secretaries clicked   

Their Smith Coronas closed at five p.m.   

And took the streetcars to Kentucky then   

And I left too.