dad's birthday.
Submitted by a.lashbrook on October 9, 2007, 8:40pm.
today is your birthday
and you are fifty-one years old;
you should be fifty-one years old.
for ten years,
you've been following me.
make that a few years longer.
since i was seven, most likely;
you've been following me.
most days, you're invisible.
some days, you visit in visions.
others, there are memories
of sheets and tickled feet
and hiding under covers;
i was safe there.
i am safe there
even on ninety degree nights.
i hide.
on those nights, i think of you.
on your birthday, i think of you
and don't know what to think.
"Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure, a sense of nothing having been done before, of complete freedom to experiment; but when caution comes in you get repetition, and repetition is the death of art."