Fallon Collins

My Father, Missing My Mother

Your tumor is consuming
but does not scare you.

Those rough palms tell
the same sad story of an ice rink
with your fragile beauty queen, my mother
slicing perfect circles into the cold.

You wanted to stay there forever,
knowing the ice would melt eventually
and you could prove your loyalty;
save her from a cold death.

You still offer your hand,
reaching down so close
you claim you can already feel
her bones. She knows I’m coming. 

The ice has melted;
your hands are covered in dirt.


After Williams

I opened
the seven Heineken bottles
waiting in the fridge
after you went home
for Thanksgiving.

I chugged them
one after
another,
mostly because
I was empty.

There was no one
to drink with,
no one to come
home to. I know

I should be
remembering
my father, dead
for the first Thanksgiving
of my life,

but this loneliness
is the melting kind,
and I am sinking,

knowing your laugh
at the dinner table,
so full of mashed potatoes
that you might explode.

Tonight, I need to be
that laughter aching
inside of someone.


When you’re at work

I’m out fucking the neighbor

skirting his hip bones
with the fringes of my hair,

seizing his shoulders
with the weight
of my chest,

driving his daydreams
like the tick
of a cautious clock.

I take him as if you’re watching
through the upstairs window.


Nervous Twitch

I burnt the softest part
of your lips in the oven
and as you seeped into my gut I recited
Neruda’s odes with your mouth
and made eyes with the moon.

We were sardines
summoned to rupture
the tin and swim swiftly
into the mouths of
each other.

After supper,
I remembered that you
were the reason
I have this nervous twitch
in my left eye. The very reason
I poisoned the mockingbirds
mating in the yard. 

The quiet slush of your last breath, heavy liquor.
You didn’t flinch because you were already inside.

CP

Fallon Collins is a poetry student in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program. She lives outside of Jacksonville, Florida with her biggest fans: a boyfriend, 3 dogs, and a cat. She keeps a personal blog of some of her favorite poems and art at: www.kepthoney.com