How many of those old children's tales
have I found myself editing and adding to
while reading to my young daughter?
becoming some cretin's favorite meal,
how many kindly animals saved from the axe?
What kind of mother sells her kids to the gypsies?
What kind of father could somehow be talked
into leaving his children alone in the woods,
hungry and terrified, with only the birds
and breadcrumbs to help lead them home?
Even poor Francis, that inquisitive and mischievous
badger, was threatened with a spanking
for failing to fall asleep on command, with me,
grudgingly, having to explain the meaning
of the word, so foreign was the idea in our home.
Things are very different in this telling of ours,
a world apart from that of her father's.
One day, perhaps, she may understand how
I somehow altered my own narrative, and
therefore hers, simply by being the father who
stayed, who chose to do so every moment.
Though there are still many days when I long
to change the story, if only by slowing it down,
pausing before the next turn of the page.
Every small moment has somehow become
my favorite, every adventure the greatest one yet.
I am only beginning to understand, dear reader,
and I confess, I never want this story to end.
