Remembering my father

all the city’s old men remind me of my father
when death made him the first advance
in a strange land – I was a child then

the man I saw on the quayside
tripping over a cobblestone
his humiliated eyes piercing through my heart
I could have been his son

and I remember the fiddler
rubbing his guts
in Paradise street
yet another riddle

all the city’s old men
under the autumn sky
whisper it seems
I was your father
in far gone days