pater familias

let me be the one
 who kills the spiders
 who ambush you,
     screaming with a terror
both funny and alarming
   your hand over your
       mouth, finally,
knuckles like pink
   candies.

       I am the one who
checks the locks,
 lights the candles,
       whispers in the red glow
        of St. Michael the Archangel
   

       And other things besides,
           who dispatches lingering possums,
after the dog has lost interest,
   sending them to a perfect realm,
       a heaven really, with no inept
               coon hounds, or young boys, or BB guns.


Let me be he
   who kisses your cheek
        while you bathe in
 the blue light
        of your phone,
tapping to the corners of the world,
               my nose against
 your perfect seashell
        of an ear,
and pretending
     that i really am

Recipe

( wrote this on the overhead to teach the students about rhyming schemes and similes)


Stir  your heart gently, gliding with a silver spoon
 drape your worries  to dry in the sun  on a string
Throw your cares across the silver sleeping moon,
and warm them slowly, until winter turns to spring
   then make time stand still, like a bird on a wire
  and live your life for love like a house on fire.