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IJE Advance Access originally published online on August 19, 2004
International Journal of Epidemiology 2004 33(6):1193; doi:10.1093/ije/dyh286
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IJE vol.33 no.6 © International Epidemiological Association 2004; all rights reserved.

Diversion

My Father at Fifty

Michael Hofmann

Your mysterious economy blows the buttons

off your shirts, and permits overdrafts

at several foreign banks. – It must cost the earth.

Once I thought of you virtually as a savage,

atavistic, well-aligned, without frailties.

A man of strong appetites, governed by instinct.

You never cleaned your teeth, but they were perfect anyway

from a diet of undercooked meat; you gnawed the bones;

anything sweet you considered frivolous.

Your marvellous, singled-minded régime, kept up

for years, of getting up at four or five,

and writing a few pages ‘on an empty stomach’,

before exposing yourself to words – whether

on the radio, in books or newspapers,

or just your own from the day before ...

Things are different now. Your male discriminations

– meat and work – have lost their edge.

Your teeth are filled, an omnivorous sign.

Wherever you are, there is a barrage of noise:

your difficult breathing, or the blaring radio –

as thoughtless and necessary as breathing.

You have gone to seed like Third World dictators,

fat heads of state suffering horribly

from Western diseases whose name is Legion ...

Your concentration is gone: every twenty minutes,

you go to the kitchen, or you call your wife

over some trifle. Bad-tempered and irritable,

you sedate yourself to save the energy of an outburst.

Your kidneys hurt, there is even

a red band of eczema starring your chest.

Your beard – the friend of the writer who doesn't smoke –

is shot with white ... A Christmas card arrives

to ask why you don't have any grandchildren.

From ACRIMONY by Michael Hofmann, published by Faber & Faber. Reprinted with permission.


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This Article
Right arrow Extract Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
33/6/1193    most recent
dyh286v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
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Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
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Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Hofmann, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Hofmann, M.
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What's this?