A Poem by John Tustin

SQUATTING UPON MY FAILURE

Squatting upon my failure;
my failure as a father,
my failure as a son,
my failure as a husband,
my failure as a good kind of man.

Glaring at me in the nightlight mirror;
redfaced,
blue-eyed,
fatnosed,
yellow-teethed,
unshaven,
potbellied,
falling falling detritus
of skin, of bones, of hair.
Expanding me.

And here I am
and here she is
and they’re in there
and there you are
and there you go.

Squatting upon my failure
like some mad hen
with a preening rump of feathers
fanned
over her perfect oval babies.
They are smooth
and they are whole
and here I sit
in my sweat
and my stink
and my unholiness,
my wicked shapelessness
and I wait.

I wait to unshape
you.



John Tustin graduated from nowhere, edits nothing, and has no awards. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry is a link to his poetry online.