3 Poems by Chrissy Martin
Inheritance
My mother lost her father on a day without I love you. She was twelve. Every day but this he would cup his hands to scoop water like blowing back kisses. His drowning remains the family mystery. My mother swore to say I love you when anything could happen. She watered the flowers: I love you. Fed the barn cats: I love you. When I shut the bedroom door, I bet she whispered it through the crack.
In secret, my own father’s organs blew big as birthday balloons. And how did we not know about the heart attacks? The medical examiner said his was the most scarred heart he’d ever seen, or so the story goes. When they took him away on a gurney, I thought of the relief we’d share later when he returned. He was wheeled through the front door: I love you. I watched from the living room: silent. Forgive me. I was frozen, speechless, nineteen.
Dad is Dead and I’m Sorry
Sister, I want to give you something. But first, I want to take
so you have another hand to hold this. Maybe take it all so you can
hold it with both hands, really feel the damp warmth, the slippery sheen.
Think of it like this: remember when we mixed water and cornstarch.
It was solid while tossing from hand to hand but fell to liquid
when we stopped, stained the carpet. I’m holding my news and also
yours and it’s getting everywhere. Meet me in the branches of the pines
where we used to play, two sisters trying to climb as high as we could
before the branches were too thin to hold us. Here, I’ll give you this news.
The new heap in your hands you have to keep tossing, pine needles
that get caught in. It’s a long way down from these branches with both
of our hands busy. Our bodies seated close, pine sap sticking
your thighs to mine. This is the closest we ever were; we sat stuck.
Rainwater
After a noisy rain, scattering kibbles for the barn cats,
the early risers rub against my pajama pants, the night owls
pop their warm heads from their tunnels in the stacked hay.
I feed the new mama cat extra, pet her thin back when I see it:
a large barrel, a hole in the barn roof that let the rain in,
a small orange body face down barely rocking in the water.
Someone needs to get him out. My mouth can’t tell my mother
what has happened; if I say, it feels like I have put his body
in the barrel myself, made the edges too tall to climb.
I bring her to the barn and pretend to show her something
different—the new-opened eyes of a kitten, perhaps. Pretend to
discover at the same time as her the orange, floating figure.
***
The second the doctor left the room someone said call your sister
since she was states away where she had driven to spite my father.
I dialed. When she thinks of his death, does she hear my voice?
I can’t remember how I told her but I hope I was gentle.
I bet I said Dad felt weird so we called the ambulance and now he’s dead
But maybe I led her slowly to a barrel spilling with rainwater.
Maybe there is a type of kindness that is not leading someone
to a discovery, not the shock of fur but explaining the loss
even though her car was too slow to be able to see him
face up, as if frozen in horror—no, I want it to be in awe—
up at the ceiling on the world’s smallest silver operating table
not moving, but this time, it is me rocking, this time, me making water.
Chrissy Martin is a PhD candidate at Oklahoma State University and has an MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago. She is the Poetry Editor for Arcturus and an editorial assistant for Cimarron Review. Her work has appeared in Harpur Palate, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Crab Creek Review, and Carve Magazine. Find her at chrissymartinpoetry.com.