~
My Son Has Obviously Been Eating ChapStick
because right now he’s making bold statements
about how “Unfortunately, there are some ChapSticks,
sad to say, and it’s hard to believe, but
some ChapSticks out there
are apparently poison, or a little bit poisonous at least,
and can actually kill people sometimes or
maybe just hurt them pretty bad
so they have to go to hospitals
and maybe get shots.”
He pauses, eventually, and looks at me—
rather, doesn’t, quite—and waits
for me to say something like “No, that’s not right.
No. I don’t know where you heard that
or who would have told you something so untrue,
and even if you—if someone, I mean; if anyone
happens to have been eating his ChapStick—or hers—
their ChapStick, let’s say—
because yeah, that stuff smells pretty good
and might even taste kind of good, who knows—you would
—they would—have nothing to fear,
because I’m pretty sure ChapStick’s non-toxic.
Which means, basically: You’re safe. It’s safe. I’m certain.”
But because I’m a dick I instead say
“Oh, I know.”
And then I say “How’d you find that out,
all that stuff about the ChapStick?”
And he waits, waits, and
then says “Some kids just
think that.”
But then I say “Wait…” and I tell him
it isn’t true, not a bit, none of it, not to worry,
you’ll be fine, you’re safe, no matter what,
I was kidding and I’m sorry, I am, please forgive me?
and he smiles big in the dark.
~
Jeff Tigchelaar
Jeff Tigchelaar is the author of Certain Streets at an Uncertain Hour (Woodley Press, 2015), winner of the Kansas Authors Club Nelson Poetry Book Award. His poems appear in AGNI, Beloit Poetry Journal, The MacGuffin, Hawaii Pacific Review, Heavy Feather Review, Rattle, Rhino, The Museum of Americana, New Ohio Review, Best New Poets and Verse Daily. Recipient of a poetry fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council, he works at a library in Huntington, WV.