Fatherland

Our father was a house built
over and over on the same
tract of land. After the news

and a beer, he went to bed
one house and woke up three.
Even the army of contractors

who were his closest friends
could not explain the phenomenon:
1+3=7 and so on.

We were very proud.
No one else had a father
as ubiquitous as ours.

He had himself paved,
strung phone lines to his
extremities. When we wished

to speak to him we cried,
"Oh father without end,
we cannot find your head."

Once we gave him slippers,
which we had to UPS—
each one to a different address.

The worms who had been displaced
to window boxes and cemetery
plots at first reviled him

then decided he was God.
They named him Glenview Forest
and Olde Mill Heights, after

a forest and a mill so
long gone they were
purely theoretical.

Copyright © 2002 Lauren Bower All rights reserved
from Wisconsin Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission