an ark

i call my father & ask him
to build me an ark. he is a man
of wood chips & splinters.
he does not ask where & what for.
instead he asks, "how big?"
i drive to my childhood home
where he is painting birds
into the sky. i lay down in the grass
& tell him to measure me. 
the ark just needs to be big enough
for me to lay down. what i love
about my father is that he does not
question me anymore. understands
that we are both glass ships
in a sea of teeth. moves the wood
across the saw blade. shapes the plants
& the bow. shapes the mast & the rutters.
i have never asked him about the flood.
about how our mouths filled with water
& drown out the languages there.
we speak in a wayward tongue. clips
of mountains & a drawer full of acid-burn socks.
when he is finish he will arrive an hour
early to my house. the ark, bigger
than it needs to be but, as a father,
he is always worrying i do not have enough.
together we walk through the ark.
touch the wood. marvel at it. i remind him
that once we hung a back door
to my house. it took all afternoon
with the goats laughing at our follies.
i consider briefly telling him to stay. asking if
he would live in the land-locked ark. 
neither of us are a prophet. instead, we are
survivors of a dammed river. the lamprey
that knot themselves in our lungs.
an ocean, thick as broth, rising
as the rain starts.