Parents

I picked up the dad word from an opaque coffee mug
That I found in my mother's decorated drawer
*we can roleplay*
Xeroxing "I love you"s from our old greeting cards to paste at the end of letters we write to equate the trade and escape the pressed lip blame
I keep my fingers toward the ground
But I know your eyes won't hug mine the way your arms hug the half-sisters
And it seems we should ease off our plastic triggers before
The hand sweat makes the hold impossible

I picked up the dad word from the finger-paintings we used to do in class
*each June:*
Color-coding every disconnected year according to the smile-forming probablies
We can script-read
Choosing the proper face plates and putting on our best phone voices during out monthly chats for fear of having the breath pace overheard
I flew through a storm once to meet you-
Broke through the cloud where our penciled-in plural danced for the second
And with a foot's slip, I fell into your eyes:
Alwaysonly a part of you while you stood at the end of some numberless ruler, holding your new family's hand, forming the wall that would greet me...

I was born 30 years too late for the package deal on parents
The clock's walk brought weaker limbs
I was born 30 years too late for the package deal on parents
But I've created the other half to help me branch from
I was born 30 years too late for the package deal on parents
I don't mind the other room so much anymore
But couldn't resist finally working the empty octave that crawled through
And I offered it to you as my gift:
The cut-along-the-lips drawer breaker-
Voice-painted before another summer folds over
Filling your coffee mug to the brim with the ink they'd misfingered with...
Of course
One of us
Had to let it slip