Playing Dead

Our father liked to play a game. 
He played that he was dead. 
He took his thick black glasses off 
and stretched out on the bed. 
 
He wouldn’t twitch and didn’t snore 
or move in any way. 
He didn’t even seem to breathe! 
We asked, Are you okay? 
 
We tickled fingers up and down 
his huge, pink, stinky feet— 
He didn’t move; he lay as still 
as last year’s parakeet. 
 
We pushed our fingers up his nose, 
and wiggled them inside— 
Next, we peeled his eyelids back. 
Are you okay? we cried. 
 
I really thought he might be dead 
and not just playing possum, 
because his eyeballs didn’t twitch 
when I slid my tongue across ’em. 
 
He’s dead, we sobbed—but to be sure, 
I jabbed him in the jewels. 
He rose, like Jesus, from the dead, 
though I don’t think Jesus drools. 
 
His right hand lashed both right and left. 
His left hand clutched his scrotum. 
And the words he yelled—I know damn well 
I’m way too young to quote ’em.