The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: tether & lung by Kimberly Ann Priest

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On Needing Someone to Be a Little Like God

My son falls into the arms
of an overstuffed chair
and imitates his father
watching TV,
remote in hand, seduced
until he hears
the knob turn
on the trailer’s backdoor
and lurches forward,
out of the chair,
bounding toward
the groan and clack
of hinges and feet,
trembling with facts
learned from cartoons
and fingers flavored
with crackers and cheese,
charging into
his father’s open arms,
half a reflection of me
standing in the kitchen
with paring knife in hand,
seduced—
needing someone to be
a little like God
feeding, clothing, listening
as we try to understand
his absence from our day.

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