"Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead" by Andrew Hudgins - Title Choice

"One day I'll lift the telephone / and be told my father's dead. He's ready." I see this title as slightly misleading. It implies that elegies are only for those who are dead. THIS IS NOT TRUE! It can be any poem of mourning. Obviously, this father is not dead. Literally, anyways. Figuratively speaking, the speaker says that his father is as good as dead. His father is ready for death, for he is prepared for the afterlife. So, to in a way satirize his father, the son writes an elegy for him. Through the use of the elegy, I see him indirectly addressing his father. While his father is ready for death, the speaker is not. The speaker is trying to tell his father to stop talking about death so much, he isn't ready for his father to die.