Collestipher D. Chatto


Into the Cliff Houses

And the homes sheltered them in place
And the critters weren’t shy anymore
And the finch nestled between mule ears

And the moon glowed his mother pale, he knew
And he wrote: don’t worry, mom

And the mouths in the TV were popped abscesses
And they went from sneezes to wheezes
And O it hurts to posture and, no, they buried her alone

And Australia released the Cardinal upon our boys
And the son’s poem quivers like a buckling lifeline
And the father in the other line beckons him to cradle mom
And they scavenge for dregs, crumbs, in the underside of head hair
And here, in the cadaver pouch
the Queen, bulbous like a pink moon engorges the coral crown

And we ran
And we tripped over rock mounds
And we ran from the death
And it had crawled from the cliff houses to say hello again
And strangers stood outside bedroom windows, sinewy, frothing, those eyes
And we ashed the hooghan’s doorway, just waiting
And waiting
And waiting
And bitter yet pleasant against the roof.

  

 

Our Ears are Abalones


In the quiet throat swallows of night, once again forbidden, so place your attention on one star; if this bed wasn’t a missionary’s corpse it’d be mother’s chest, undulating with my eased breathing; now, every night, a jab terrors one out of rest, drenched, ghosts left a headband of bone-beads; shadows jut in the lamp’s light beneath the door—it could be her with the viper that gnashes sun-deprived thighs; murmurs verge into weeps—these memories of grandpa blending colors with a knife, save us—the hallow gallows, they never say, the monster’s stomach, these weeps drip from

 

an arm dangling
from the mattress
and into the
pale eyes poised
just below the
floorboards.

Fall Foliage

My fascination began when fall fell from the mattress
There in the orange mound a façade of kid fingers
Were but large piglets, coils of bristles, silent whistles
Of Coors and Natural Ice stale in those bunions
If it dangled from bedside, that is how cold
An old hour scolds one to cover and trauma
To bellow these winds, to accost a runt, rush snow over here
Freeze bag these beauties and tape each one to a missing person’s flyer.

Collestipher D. Chatto is from the Ramah Navajo reservation located in western New Mexico. Collestipher received his MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM. His work has appeared in some journals and anthologies. Besides writing, he runs the evening trails, hikes serene mesas, paints when there’s enough room in the week, draws strange things, and teaches visual art to youngsters.

ISSN 2472-338X
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