CONTROL FREAK

A GIRL AND HER CONTROLLING FATHER

 

Her father was a control freak.
He had to know what she was

reading and seeing and hearing
and whom she was meeting and

hey he said who was that kid I saw
you talking to outside school today?

Archie she said he’s just a friend who
likes the bands I like oh so he says

her father said you know what he’s
really after? I’ll tell you shall I? she

hated it when he went on like that.
Hated his presumption of knowing

what other’s thought or what their
deep desires were. He wants to get

inside your panties that’s what he’s
after her father said and she blushed

and said no he’s not he’s not that kind
of boy oh what you telling me the kid’s

batting for his own team? Huh? Huh?
And some other time as she was reading

a Dostoevsky book he said who’s he?
some Russian writer? You read the enemy?

What’s a matter with good old American
writers? Not good enough? She closed

the book and put it away in her schoolbag
and took out a battered copy of Naked Lunch

by William Burroughs and started to read.
That’s better a good old American writer

her father said and smiled and sat back in
his chair by the fire not knowing the book

opened out a different world for her and
a whole new other kind of deeper desire.