Daddy

Now at last i love you
daddy
daddy
me --
you
who love your ease

cartoon Saturdays
playskinned knees

we boasted, cried
we lied, and hid
our playskinned knees

Just wait! she said
until your Daddy's home --
the enemy

we thought of you as one,
you two
you two
unspeaking islands in a wordless sea

You are not she

You who by heart would let me lie
and love
You put me in an Em shaped shoe
You made the shoe

You made me, crippled sad
rise from your brain
unwise
i did not do, i did
not say --

You wanted to know How and Why
The gray
Soft places did not frighten you:
i cried

You were the rock on which my gray rain fell
and did not bite
and did not kiss
nor did you tell me what --

Daddy
shallow
thinker
shifting
shiftless
cartoon
screen

You listened in

You love the many skins that we
lie
in --

like you a shallow lover i
love the shoals
shun the deep (the dark)
the wicked souls --

You choose (peacelover) to bite
the sweet, white flaps on skin
To hear (not to let lie)
the smooth and lying thin
Skin of our hearts, that lie --

You listen in

you love
you do not judge

You listen in

Dear man, you give
your own sweet skyblue soul
your thinroot, thirsty tree

Dear man, you speak

You gave me, dying, your two ears
wrapped up in tissue paper
yellowgreen

you listened to the love
the rot
the stenciled green

You loved the soft wormheart -- you said
In truedeep gold believe

Beloved, thinsoled, wormheart (you said):
Believe