The sheets are thin and white as a bill
we can’t pay. Light and faces filter
through pink plaid, blue stripe. I am the parent
who builds the best tents. Ties sheet-corners
to the spindle-spines of kitchen chairs—
Mawmaw’s chicken house walnut chairs,
the black-painted Walmart chairs from college,
the roadside abandoned chairs, all clustered
like a last supper.

In the living room, our only space for such
extravagances, they play sentinels to the lair.
I weigh down what is uncertain, leave a measure
of concealment, of places to view the outside.
Inevitably, the children find the most joy
in the careful structure collapsing.