Best Poems Written by Lou Haze

Bernard

daddy, you’re not my daddy.
just a strange man with similar features.
you play make believe every winter, 
sometimes the spring.
i thought it was a fun game of dress-up,
until i learned the difference between imagination and reality.
you find the blonde hair, pale-faced mask you bought in 1987
in a box that’s hidden in the back of your closet.
it’s covered in dust and labeled, 
“Unimportant Winter/Spring Stuff.”
you call me your baby girl —
stop by in your ’85 dodge pick-up —
make me call you daddy.  
but daddy, you’re not my daddy.
and you didn’t want me to call you daddy
when i was a year old, in 1988.
you left the house with two over-stuffed duffle bags —
one filled with clothes, the other with booze.
you jumped in your ’85 dodge pick-up with a 
fat woman named kim —
an ugly b*tch with sh*t-colored hair.  
that’s the day you saw the ugly in me, 
yet saw beauty in her while flying down muddy creek road doing 70.

Copyright © Lou Haze | Year Posted 2016