Susanna Childress
Last January, in the middle of a polar vortex, you gave birth to a baby. The snowstorm stacked itself four feet high and iced everyone in and did not quit, not truly, till April. This child would have been your third son, Jericho, a boy you cradled against you just once, already gone.
Read More That year when all we did was fight
and fuck, fuck and fight, I felt awful—we both did,
I know—for the guy who lived with us, who came home
from the seminary to our shouts, one set sounding
astoundingly like the other. I never heard him
arrive but always I heard him leave, which is when you
would turn, your neck strained as a horse’s
in parade, beautiful and frightened, listening for a mount
on the stairs while I caught the pedals of his ancient bike
scraping toward a library of bibles, kids
on the street playing Not-It and all our windows
flung up. Admit it: you didn’t know the difference—the sound of a door
opening, the sound it makes
when shut. I kept thinking that year would end
with a quiet conference, that we’d sit him down
in the breakfast nook, night’s clamped-shut-stink
still on his breath and begin, Look, Corey, we’re sorry. It’s just that
we’re having a baby. And then,
everyone’s face blooming a stupid rose red, yours
the same as when you jog, low, a fiery swipe of color
straddling your lips, he would forgive us
our ruckus, his eyes shining a little with what doesn’t spill, New
life, he’d say. And who knows. We each
could’ve found a place inside to make sense of the snow
that started too early and would not, for anything, let up.
Originally published by New South, http://newsouthjournal.com.
I used to sing to the windows
of my father’s
failing truck alongside
the peat-bog-voice of Van Morrison
a sweet philosophic jumble
I never have parsed out. My father,
steady as a flume, touched my arm
once and corrected me: the question
isn’t “What’s the sound
of one man clapping?” but one hand,
and even then I sang, bright
with defiance, didn’t (want to) get it, how
could I, hounded by this one man
clapping—so grand,
really, astounding—some guy
in a hooded Celtics sweatshirt standing
out in the street, in the aisles
of an empty chapel, ten acres of tobacco,
a grocery mart, a fire escape, clapping,
clapping, clapping, clapping.
Originally published by Every Day Poems.
My brother
has come to live with us
and how could we know
how deliberate
his hands
would be: at the sink,
thawing beans
stringy from too hot a June,
smoothing hairs
that whisper about
my sons’ ears, locking the door
against the snow. His hands
move slow as a dream, the kind
where no one watches out
for you as you slip over
the edge and sprawl
wordlessly down mountains
of air or time or floors
of people doing ordinary things
like switching on a lamp
or thumbing coins
in a pocket or typing out
a dissertation on the circus
which is the only thing my brother
feels proud about doing
in his whole holy life
—and here he is, living
in our basement
and looking at me
over waffles
as though I have given him
something
to be grateful for.
Originally published by fugue. See more at http://www.fuguejournal.com.
The neighbor boy has cancer, has a fifty-fifty
chance, has taught my son how to play Wii, has spoken
of heaven, has planted four beans, has relapsed,
has used the word aspirate correctly in a sentence, has fallen
in love with our dogs which he is timid to admit
since his own dogs are nearly as lovable, has grown
his hair back, has mentioned Jésus, too, has cancer
and gave him a Hello Kitty sticker yesterday
at hemoc—hematology/oncology, has transformed
legos into a pixilated basket of fruit, has blown up
a balloon and tied it to himself with a string, has beaten
the highest score in Rubble Trouble, has relapsed,
has built a fort with my son featuring moat,
back door, and windows, all out of snow, has prayed
for Jésus and also Ben and also Tara and also Cameron
and also for my son, who does not have cancer
but a stomach virus which kept him from playing
Sidewalk Chalk and for which this kid remembers to lift
the syllables of my son’s name from his tongue to God,
like Pop Rocks, blueberry-blue, crackling, loud,
my son’s name in that boy’s open, irreducible mouth.
________________________________________________________________
This appeared on Antler, http://thisisantler.com/2012/04/interview-susanna-childress/.
Follow the link to read a previous interview with Susanna Childress.
