i go through this daily plot
waking, working, trudging
first world ease, office walls
wheeled chairs
afternoon run
tupperware lunch
dinner the night before
home again, dinner
dishes again,
play again,
daughter picks up
new phrases, new looks
vegetable strainer toy
"umbrella," she says
i see those eyes, my wife's
and i wonder
what is this place?
these walls, these roads,
those sitka pines and shrinking
glaciers?
how 'm i supposed to be a father
with all these things stretching out
vaster than reason, than comprehension
those talking heads, ranting this or that
liberty's ***** freedom's snatched,
the world warms, the world cools
Filipinos scream in the face of angry
winds, the prim cut weatherman wildly
gestures at a colorful map, powerful
he says, historic
he says
more dripping mouthes,
government want guns now,
more money to ****** our phones
to send unmanned drones
our president's muhammad,
or jesus, or kenyan, or raciest
a genius or incompetent
everyone knows
just back home
a tiny algae grows and foams
thrashing in the autumn water
brown oxygen choking life
never found on our shores before
kills fish,
i imagine so much more
i hold my daughter in my lap
reading mother goose,
run my hand through her
thin smooth hair,
sometimes afraid
of what she'll see and hear
with her mother's eyes
and her father's ears