the deacon at church looked like Mister Rogers if
Mister Rogers had a really bad day same
beaky nose, gaunt cheeks, the swoop
of hair but instead of the one-sided smile the lips
were pressed together like the wringer
on an old-fashioned washing machine or maybe
there were two different Mister Rogers and finally
the bad-tempered guy got loose
I used to think that—that I had two mothers
and every night they fought and the one who won
locked the other one in the closet because how else
could you explain that on Tuesday we were painting
with watercolors making fish faces trying to suck
our milkshakes up our straws but by Wednesday she was ripping
the pages out of my father’s books and snapping the necks
of his cigars screaming that my neck was
next I told my father my idea about the two
mothers and my father told me to cut the crap
because only a childhood schizophrenic would split
their thoughts that way and since I clearly wasn’t
a schiz I needed to stop reading his medical journals
and making up bullshit diagnoses for attention I never
thought my father was two people he was
always just like that
