breeders

don't get me wrong i want 
everything. i want kids & i want
to name them after plants. 
i want to put them on my shoulders
& lie about the moon. i want us
to have a little house with a roof
that does not leak & a bathroom
full of spiders. i wonder if i was
what my parents wanted. my father
built a deck & used to drink out there
until the stars were loud as the cicadas. 
i would sometimes sit with him. sometimes
tell him stories about the snakes
& the toads by the creek. i like to hope
that sometimes i have been what he craved.
he has, on occasion, been what i needed
which is all most of us can say about 
our fathers. we would drive through
the corn fields. the corn, each a baby
in a husk. maybe he dreamed of a child
less prone to terror. maybe he thought
all of this would be easier. i do not let myself
get too far into the breeder thoughts.
not because i don't on some level want it 
but you can get crazy with symbols. 
we all want to repeat a myth. i consider
what it means to grow life in all directions.
to spread the milkweed seeds when they arrive
with downy parachutes. to open the cattails.
to carry a bale of hay to the goats. i steal 
the chicken eggs in the morning 
from the coop. inside each of them are 
children i could name after plants. 
my father likes to show up without warning.
brings wood shavings. names me  
after a distance & drives home through the fields.