Peter Twal is the author of Our Earliest Tattoos, winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize, forthcoming from the University of Arkansas Press in 2018. His poetry has appeared in Best New Poets, Kenyon Review Online, West Branch Wired, Ninth Letter Online, Gulf Coast, Bat City Review, and elsewhere. He is a recipient of the Samuel and Mary Anne Hazo Poetry Award. ---------
The Conversation’s Winding Away
All my friends chorus-line Don’t make us wait
in the tall grass, wringing the sweat from my shirt
then the shirt from my shirt Deep down,
we both know
there aren’t enough
suspender belts in the world to keep this car
on the road I give my wings to a half-buried baby
bird I stumble over
while overhead, a plane explodes
My dear heart, you tell me, let’s be brave but I’m ten years
late to a class reunion & the PA system won’t stop singing
the hits, noosing
your name around
my neck
If You’re Worried about the Weather
If a knife wound
tattoo is all it takes to pull
together this look
If down the back of an ear, fingertips beaded with sweat
If wrapped in cellophane If I can’t hear anything
outside of my own voice my own voiceless—
If you’re swimming through an argument
in laugh tracks If a handful of your yellowing
teeth dropped in a vase, nutrients for roses
If it’s called hide-&-go
nothing when left in the cupboard
If you donate blood to a specter
through a straw until you passed out
If the sky’s more penny than pound
You Drop the First Ten Years Just as Fast as You Can
I’m the rain man of counting eyelashes
About that year in high school—these neon
sideburn scars will never
go away & you’re still eating that make up wrong
Across the table I am calling home
each time I open a phone book
& slam my finger down on a different
page number I never knew Death
had class reunions, sweat spots, got nervous Did you
sleep best when you were someone’s favorite
nuance when you were the hurricane
nobody thought to name
It’s Better When We Pretend
Did you read the funnies today Everywhere around us, the universe contracts
a cold Sneezing out stars, planets, comets This is a real asthma attack
of a bar you’ve picked Restroom rehearsal twelve cigarettes in my mouth, the words
underwater Is the toilet spilling over Is someone beating off
the hinges of this stall Next door in a theater,
the decomposed actor can’t remember her lines
or limbs & at arm’s length, her director signals the undisputed symbol for stop, drop, &
roll over A possum
on the side of the road A million-dollar picture
deal in the pocket of a poorly fitting human suit
You Always Knew You were Tired
If I have to relearn my body I will
with a mother’s amazement clapping together her baby’s feet
If with a mother’s amazement clapping together her baby’s feet
I relearn my body—