The Fort

my uncle came over to baby sit

while my parents had a date night

my sister and I played in the family room down stairs

while our uncle watched the news in the living room

we stripped our couch

brought our pillows and blankets

down from our rooms

we built the biggest most complex fort ever

with rooms connected by couch cushion corridors

ceilings of Rainbow Bright and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bed-sheets

we filled it with our stuffed animals

Wally the Walrus, three Carebears,

a brown bear missing an eye

the right ear encrusted with dried saliva

after filling the fort and

exploring every nook

we left our creation

ran upstairs

to ask our uncle to come down

and crawl inside with us

hoping he’d see more than a mess.