Colleen Abel
In my father’s house are many mansions
Two hundred rooms in each in each
a suitcase filled with tiny fathers
bottle-shaped shaped
like paperweights Russian dolls of dads
little carved dice fathers ivory
skulls marbles arrowhead fathers
inside the burnished leather
lacquered with stamps of nowhere
my father has ever been the nowhere
of our ancestors unflown planes
my inheritance unsailed ships
I lift every piece of luggage
his helpmate his bellgirl our cargo