When my father drinks water

he swallows the room, the house, our neighbors, furniture and friends catch in his throat, bridges stick in his teeth, roads run down his tie. When he coughs great factories bellow, trains wail like something captured, boulders break into rivers rolling the sky as they tumble over clouds into the sea. When my father sneezes land is cleared and mountains lie on their backs, hold their stomachs and laugh, tickle rainbows with their toes, chew trees in their teeth like hayseed boys. Except for this, my father is a very quiet man who never even rattles his Sunday paper.