by Darla Himeles
And how many single-parent children
are lied to, told to call Mommy and Daddy
those who are secretly not
or told dramas of Daddy's death
at war or by other sacrifice
to hide imprisonment, abandonment?
When McCain sideways smiles
as an adoptive parent does
when he is proud of himself,
and says two men could never
adopt a child together, clearly
children need both parents
(by which he must mean both
genders), I wonder about orphans
and the many children lied to
and whether two fathers
or two mothers or even three
would be worse than a man
like Mr. McCain who cannot
understand any one plus one
is always more love than none.
Darla Himeles currently lives in Bryn Mawr, PA, and works as the Coordinator of Staff Education at nearby Bryn Mawr College. This winter she will begin pursuing her MFA in poetry at Drew University's low-residency program. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Mad Poets Review, Getting Read, and Poetica Magazine.
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