Urinetown

We bundled the children into the car and went

into Manhattan; the attendant at

the Icon garage wore a knitted hat

and smelled like grass; he had some kind of accent.

O, City of Finance, thin-crust slice, cement!

We expected young men dressed like cats,

beautiful, manly, in their junkyard habitats,

instead our babies saw some gender-bent

weirdos, two young women, clearly not

identified as male, one in a near

I-Dream-of-Jeannie outfit, enter the gents!

My boy began to cry. “Daddy, I’ve got

to pee!” Think fast, John! “Peeing’s queer!”

I cried, the modern father’s last lament.