Read Excerpts from The Chaffin Journal

Poetry

My dad wanders through
the house, collecting moons
of soap: gibbous scraps
milled between his hands,
translucent crescents,
ready for his shaving mug.

He comes home
from McDonald’s, his pockets
freighted with sugar
packets, and those little tubs
of nondairy coffee creamer.

Easy to understand where
such thrift is rooted:
His was the mythic poverty
of the ‘30s: a bowl of beet soup
and a heel of bread,

he and his brothers sleeping
three to a bed. Harder to say
why he thought love
had to be rationed like a week’s
pay packet, so everybody

got something, but none
got enough.