What is the main conflict in Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead by Andrew Hudgins?

"Elegy for My Father, Who Is Not Dead" was published by Houghton Mifflin, in 1991, in The Never-Ending, Andrew Hudgins's third volume of poems. The poem calls itself an "elegy" in the first half of the title, and thus we expect to hear a poetic lament for someone who has died.