Stuff We Did With Dad by John W. Sexton
![By Nils Dardel (1888-1943) (dardel.info) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://www.polutexni.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ND_Far.jpg)
our dad could produce five thousand starlings from a folded bus ticket
once he even pulled forth a dragon made entirely of silk from his top pocket
in the summer when the grass grew long he would weave it into a coat
and we would climb into the pockets of the lawn and sleep beneath the stars
once he leant a ladder against the moon and we climbed all the way to an ice landing
from there we threw coins from our mother’s purse and ruined several cities below
he showed us how to float to the top of Mount Everest by overfilling the bath
how to collect the individual flames from eleven matchsticks to make a football team
who would then challenge the national team of the republic of click beetles
once we all climbed into the held breath of a whale and travelled through the ocean
and mum was mad at us because we missed our supper by seven weeks
but not as mad as she was at us when dad made us suits from elastic bands
and we all bounced to the moon and back down again and were late for October
and dad invented Table-Football-Chess and Elephants-and-Elevators and Terrible-Pursuit
and he showed us how to remove the shadow of a scissors from a scissors
and then we could cut loose our own shadows with the scissors and set them free
and we went to the zoo and freed the shadows of the lions and the leopards
and the hippos and the bison and the monkeys and the emus and the camels
and we took them home and had a zoo against the wall and our zoo never got hungry
and never got angry and lasted all day until the sun went down
and dad and mum grew tired and sleepy and slept and their hair went grey
and grew into the clouds and then it rained and rained and rained them away
picture by Nils Dardel (1888-1943) (dardel.info) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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