Then We Became Swans

You and I, wild, flying home,
our two long-necked shadows
rippling over the valley floor.
It is good, mounting the cool air,
your wing beside my wing,
but I am tired, and home is far.
Where is the shine of silver water?
Where are the rushes to shelter our sleeping,
shoulder to shoulder, and neck to neck?
Your sleek head, your feathered back
are my home. Below us,
the man raises the gun and aims.

Cheryl Gatling

published in The Cliffs "soundings"

Love Song with Cruise Control

One by one, their heads nod, then drop
into a chorus of muffled snores.
Only I remain awake, holding the wheel.
I pilot these tons of steel at lethal speed,
twisting past drop-offs, abutments, massive trucks.
Husband, child, baby, how thoughtlessly
each of you drops your life
into these tired and slightly achy hands.
It would only take a flick of the wrist,
a moment's inattention. And yet you sleep.
And still I drive. The thought of your fragile,
precious bodies fills every mile,
a surfeit of joy and terror.

Cheryl Gatling

published in Gingko Tree Review

Infant Pneumonia

She wouldn’t suck. She wouldn’t cuddle.
Her eyes rolled toward me, then away again.
I hugged her to my chest and ran
from the doctor’s office to the X-ray lab.
There they jammed her into a plastic tube
with her arms above her head,
still in her white T-shirt, crying.
“That’s good,” the technician said.
“It expands the lungs.”
When they handed her back,
I wouldn’t lay her down again.
I slept that night in a chair,
holding her up so the mucus would drain.
In sudden, sharp focus, I cherished it all:
the sweaty spikes of her damp hair,
the rattling vibrations of every breath.
I hold no moments more precious than these,
the nearly unbearable,
a pain so pure, it was almost like happiness.

Cheryl Gatling

published in The Sun

Every Day With Baby

As I walked across the bridge she cooed and bounced,
then lurched backward out of my arms,
over the railing. I grabbed. I missed.
Her heavy head cracked on the sidewalk below.

I stumbled on the gravel towpath,
and she rolled into the canal.
The water was so brown I couldn’t find her.
I splashed and groped, touching only fuzzy rocks.

The Doberman at the corner snapped his leash.
He charged too fast. He dragged her off,
gnawed her limbs until the crying stopped.
Yet we made it home, hit by only one truck.

I fed her dinner on which she choked.
I gave her a bath in which she drowned.
I laid her in her bed where she rolled over and suffocated.
Tomorrow when she wakes we will do it again.

Cheryl Gatling

published in Willow Review

Knees

It was church rule. All women and girls
must wear a dress that covered their knees.
In the hidey-hole under the hedge behind my house
I hiked my skirt, and hugged my knees.
Each bony knob fit in the cup of one palm,
and my chin fit between them. Wind played
with the baby-fine hairs. Pine needles tickled.
How funny the skin sliding over the kneecaps.
How soft the damp hollows behind,
where my fingers felt my heart beating.
When Mother called, I crawled out. I stood,
and the cotton fell in a ripple down my legs.
Now we would go to church and hear about Jesus.
He died on the cross, but first they stripped him.
He went naked to save us. All Jerusalem,
and all heaven saw his knees,
saw the boat of his hips, the wings of his shoulders,
his ribs, and long bones, and things I dare not name.
I wondered, I did not ask,
how could shame live in any body part,
after God had burned inside it like a sun?

Cheryl Gatling

published in Comstock Review

Honeymoon by Train

She sat on the suitcases.
He went again to the counter
to ask when it was coming. "Late"
was all they would say. It was almost two.
Married fourteen hours,
nothing left to say. They sat,
missing their connection in Chicago,
missing the ferry in Michigan,
losing their hotel reservations.
But now the platform was humming.
And now he was lifting her up
onto the narrow shelf bed
where they began the creak
squeal, lurch, and clang into their future.
Out the window it was passing,
slowly, then faster: backs of warehouses,
backs of factories, junkyards,
wrapped in trash and shadow.
Then, "Look," he said, "it's Instant Whip."
A spotlighted billboard: white, red, clean.
"Instant Whip," she repeated,
in her fog of love and fatigue.
She would remember this sign, this night,
as years blurred like trackside trees,
his socks still on the floor,
the gas tank left empty,
her lip numb from biting back words;
she would remember her head on his chest,
his arms around her, rocking, rocking,
how like whipped cream
the expectations heaped on the plate
collapsed in the mouth like so much air,
but leaving the taste, sweet,
yes, sweet.

Cheryl Gatling

published in The Sun

Poem About Faith

I’m kneeling in the shower,
naked, wet,
peering down the black hole of the drain.
I can see my gold earring there.
I can just grip it with the tweezers,
but I keep dropping it.
Careful, steady, squeezing tight,
almost up, and the earring falls.
I’ve been at this a long time.
I’m going to be late for work.
But I believe I can do this.
I believe two people can stay married for a lifetime,
that we can rescue troubled kids,
that this war will end.
I believe in forgiveness.
I believe God loves us.
And again, the earring falls.

Cheryl Gatling

published in The Comstock Review