When Dad gets up to sing along
their voices piercing through the air,
the neighbors know there's something wrong
and fall down on their knees in prayer.
The pronoun usage in this is clumsy. Dad gets up to sing along WITH their voices...otherwise, without the idea that it should be understood (as in The Quick and The Dead in which the poet was delivered significant grief over a misplaced modifier...proper spoken colloquialism in my opinion..turned eyes toward me....) then we must hold the same standard for this poem which muddles around between, dad, the neighbors, the coupling of the boy with his dead dad all singing along under the pronoun guise of "their"...and landing on THEIR knees! Good grief.
Of course, I understand the notion and I believe the poem is so strong that this clumsiness is overlooked because the "heart" of the poem is fantastic.
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