there is a god but don’t encourage him.  my father means it tenderly.  in his attic a painting of a park scene has in it a woman without feet sitting on a bench.  without feet because his young mind couldn’t settle on them bare.  in the end it seems the wild dog has licked them away.  attic that in a drought of weeping became a basement.  our poverty was given an oar.  my past has a past.