Because you were my milk swiller, my wild singer
of rhymes, because you gave them hell from swing sets
and the tops of slides, because the pendulum
of a knee-length diaper called into question no part
of your bossy authority, because you killed ants,
precisely, with your thumbs, and no one else had sense
enough to grab my face with both hands
when it was important. Because the gate is pretty flimsy
and it doesn’t have a lock, and it is somewhere near the beginning
of the end of the day. Because what fathers do is hold you back
and let you go, and what you do at gates is say hello,
and say goodbye. Because the world is waiting and it is a world
that has been known to take exclamation points and bend them
into question marks.