Fathers

i dreamt the Fatherless dream:
ever-present myth-man haunted,
i strove for self-denied acceptance.

they never find it,
these child-presidents and emperors--
Fathering nations to protest their own orphanage. and we
pity them; vote for them; submit to them;
and i dream of their lives.

there is a reason
behind social ills, books say. and i know
it has to do with Chance: the roll of genetic dice by which
one boy returns from hospital birth in
a car his uncle drives.

not Fathers, are we brother-uncles:
no mythic beauty. we have but
pity-love, Fatherless dreams.




July '09