playing house

Let's play house.
You can be the daddy, and I'll be the mommy.

______This could be a mistake.

I don't know what a family is.
What is a family?

Some people say families are nuclear:
daddy_____mommy_____children.

But if we are all

protons & neutrons,

what will hold us together?
or will we blow apart?

______Most likely a mistake.

Queen West

for Ashlee Chatten

As I walk down queen west with my dad for the third time
in twenty-two years,
_______________I wonder if I will see you.
The white sky is cracked only by the ruddy buildings; &
____shiny new advertisements try to compel me with their
pink gums, white teeth.
______I walk ahead of my dad. I am ashamed
____that he is my dad.

We fight,
_the winter chill straining my
dad's bad heart. He threatens an immediate heart attack
______so I will slow down.

The young girls brush past holding bags of fashion,
____and the boys cling to them—
hips & chest.
I wonder if I will see you walking in the crowd

___with your mother.
__________But the faces I see are dolls;
they do nothing to comfort me. So I pray

because there is nothing else to do:
____________God, please tell me you were joking
when you said there is no way to get to you
___except to believe, because it is easier just to do things
than to have faith that
_____you'll do them for me.