do you think that my father
ever
wanted to wear a frilly summer dress
and pirouette through the fields
with the birds and the butterflies?
he was a big man
towering at six and a third feet
and greeted as the buddha incarnate
by children in china
but maybe
inside of him
was a fragile lass
who wanted to ride unicorns
under the summer sun
and now that he’s gone,
i’ll never know
— pthk 022419