It’s safe to say,
All the poems I’ve written with roads have yet to make my father come home.
I don’t remember who taught me to pray,
So I ask God in my best imitation of both my parents’ voices
I watched as the angel came into my mother’s room before my dad did.
The rock and a hard place my parents are stuck between
Are my teeth.
The devil walks on the tears of my mother
Calling himself messiah.
After a week of absence my father commands the weekend
With a bouquet of flowers
And calls himself a husband.
My father is a good father
And all good things take time…to come home.
My mother is a hausfrau clock without numbers.
And what would you call yourself?
For my mother,
Both mediator and mansion.
For my father,
A shortcut.
Truly?
I’d be more useful here as a dollar
Than a daughter.