The existentialists

Watching home movies
with my father.
Something catches his attention; 
he says, “I’ll never forget that wallpaper,
how hard it was to take down.”
I say, “You notice the most peculiar things,”
and he replies,
“Well, that’s all life is:
putting up wallpaper
and taking it down again.”
The thing is,
he’s dead serious
and because of that
I’ve never had to read
the existentialists –
Dad’s bleak vision
has taken me
far beyond
mere philosophy.

When it’s time to leave,
he stands on the stoop
to watch my figure
recede into the night.
As I turn the corner
and travel back to Europe,
I think of how
he makes the existentialists look:
Churning out philosophical manifestos
is one thing
but growing up with Dad
in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn,
is something else.