Within the womb of your Cape Cod, watercolored with lighthouses and eyeless masks, you opened up to me even more. Night after night you pulsed with tales of absent-but-fondly-hated Mother, ghostly U-Boat towers near Kitty Hawk, the ponies of Asateague, and the Outer Banks till seventeen. Your lips were moist and pulpy as heart, warm with love as you released to me whatever child-self or paternal hand returned to comfort you. Only a larger question remained. How might you atone for your schizophrenic meandering, seek forgiveness too? It was unnecessary, for your very change of nature had frightened me.
      It was our first attempt at a suspense-thriller kind of love: my wok-steamed prod, your ticking time vault whose time had not yet come. Dear Daddy Boy, I think the panic zone is to blame, you said, exasperated with both of us, Even steam won't help me, now. But this explanation of yours did not satisfy me; I was afraid that somehow I still hugged the cliff of your expectations, my next step a death plunge.