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Poems by Craig Chattin

COMPLETING THE FATHER

The man

fills his lap with
bleached wormwood hands.

His eyes implore,

make me,
complete me.

So,

I reshape his jaw
with a carpenter's plane, chamfer the curl of
fear off his lips, nail in gussets under
the damp blue armpits, and wedge his shoulders
straight.

I rub heart of daisy

into the hollows of his cheeks,
giving old richness back to his beard,
fill his eyes with wax and
light them on fire.

Now he's the father,

the man,
that both of us always wanted
him to be.

DOG ON SIDEWALK

Ah yeah, no jive baby,

we can have it all,
before sunrise, everything that matters.
Everything that no one shouts about, chases after,
or claims pieces of.

These will be ours, baby, I promise you these:

Leaf turning belly into rain breeze.
Door clicking shut in dark. Dog walking alone on hot sidewalk.
Tomatoes on vines. Truck tires whining in tunnel.
Newspaper bundle string cut six quarters on top at dawn
riders reading box scores and horoscopes dude smoothing hair girl laughing
chasing hat coffee bagel green pepper eggs,
taxi driver sees ya Yeah baby yeah, uh-huh.

All the things that don't matter,

will matter,

when we leave

the shouting and the chasing
and the claiming to all those poor bastards,
still hungry.

Seeing Oneself from a Swaying Cattail in Summer Marsh

"Have you lived?"

she asked.
I showed her the backs of my hands, the flexing knuckles,
the strong tendons & blue veins. "I'm alive," I say. "See?"

She smiles, cocks her head,

giggles, tugs at my
belt buckle, says "Oh, I know you're alive.
But have you lived?"

In that moment, her red hair

falls over her shoulder
and I remember frog hunting as a boy,
watching and envying
redwing blackbirds in the cattails -- their snappy calls,
their darting flights, their shocking crimson badges.
One thing about a redwing blackbird, when you see one
you know it.

I finish the belt buckle job, open my jeans,
reveal incontrovertible

proof
that I'm alive. She falls upon the evidence,
and for half an hour we live,
swaying among the fruity spikes, consorting with redwing blackbirds,
breathing and bathing in summer marsh scents.

When we awaken, later, she

asks, "But have you lived?"

I am thinking now,

standing by her bedroom window,
looking at backyard fences, garages, a sleeping dog.
I can just see the hood of my car, where I had hidden it,
behind her house, among the dark shade of bushes, so
it couldn't be seen from the street.

I shower, and wash away

every trace of our love scents,
all evidence of an
afternoon of swaying
in cattails.

I drag my lie

home,
drag a trail of pain home,
yearning for my own bold, true
red wings.

THE PRICE

We first saw marriage,

each and together,
as a light, floaty fabric, shimmering wings!

Wings to lift us and carry us,

transform us to angel matter,
show us the edges of mathematics, and fill us with such communion our
skins would light fire.

Now we are

enfolded in it,
outlined and identified by it, welded into its armor plating.

We are heavy in it,

swallowed into its whale gut,
our eyes redden and squint, we groan for air and swim in its belly
pressing our hands outward feeling the spaces between
ribs.

We look for oneness

each from each,
and are turned away each from the other,
by logic, by the physics
of orbits.

We ride marriage like a carousel,

looking for joy, some passion,
some swelling of flesh and soul, forbidden to us from
outside it.

Each, one and the other,

sucking in our lips to ease
the ache deep under our teeth, breathing loud through the nose
to quiet the heart, wondering about tomorrow.

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