Early that Saturday morning
the air was cool.
It brushed a sky thecolor of peaches.
The neck of my black woolen sweater constricted,
bindingme.
My father's pallid face,
still creased with pillow marks,
staredfrom across the worn wood of the kitchen table.
One of his legs twitchednervously;
its swish penetrated the silence.

I suddenly realized howmuch he knew,
how little he understood.
What had gone on last night
wasbeyond his steely gaze.
He frowned.
I smiled in my mind.

His staregrew heavy under my prim smirk.
My blue eyes glistened with the slivers ofmorning sunlight
Splashed across the table.
He didn't understand
How myheart had soared in the balmy August night.
How it ran with me
Out of thehouse in the early hours of morning.

He rambled on
And on about hischildhood -
It was nothing like my wild one.
There is nothing at all incommon between us:
no strings to tie me down to his restrictions.
Thisrealization strikes me
as I drift further away from his lecture
and deeperinto my daydream.