"I Picked a Flower for Myself" by Tricia Louvar
2 poems by Duncan Slagle
After, I Keep Everything that Reminds Me Of
your father
& my father
sunk into the dirt
we recover
the heat in
our blood.
Faces red like
split pomegranates.
Worms like
gowns of teeth
writhe around
their bodies
undressing our
men from flesh.
I am afraid to dream
this up from the mud.
Taught to apologize after.
We enter each other,
sons of shame,
breaking like bread.
Boys' tongues like
beams of light
carving the rot
from silence.
Hair on my pillow
warmed by afternoon
sun. Bless your tender
fingers; a flood of
want. Cheeks filled
with bitter pith swallowed
like fruit. Bless
summer & spill its juice.
The sheets we stain,
we leave unwashed.
& my father
sunk into the dirt
we recover
the heat in
our blood.
Faces red like
split pomegranates.
Worms like
gowns of teeth
writhe around
their bodies
undressing our
men from flesh.
I am afraid to dream
this up from the mud.
Taught to apologize after.
We enter each other,
sons of shame,
breaking like bread.
Boys' tongues like
beams of light
carving the rot
from silence.
Hair on my pillow
warmed by afternoon
sun. Bless your tender
fingers; a flood of
want. Cheeks filled
with bitter pith swallowed
like fruit. Bless
summer & spill its juice.
The sheets we stain,
we leave unwashed.
Thankfully, I Have Never Taken After My Father
Who dragged a freshly drained deer into the
shed then instructed me to remove the stomach.
Once I was in the heat of the beast,
I ripped thick sinew, fat, & muscle by hand. Then
he severed the heart’s tendons & touched
the cold organ to my cheek. This proximity like
a lead weight in my chest. He always wanted me to inherit
his instinct, like musk on a body bag--
death imagined &
then death administered & then death taken
into the mouth.
After placing the ribs in the oven to roast, I felt the gun
like it tapped at the back of my skull,
resented
my metal knowledge of its insides—how to cock a bullet
& prepare the spark, how to line the sight on
top of another body’s warmth,
where to miss, so it
suffers, & where to aim,
so my hands stay clean--
the order of things; Domain, Kingdom, Phylum,
Class, Order, Family—how a father can bend a son
over his knee & redden—on the day of that deer,
in a rage, he grabbed my coat to clean
the hunting knife, threatening more, & I sobbed at that fresh mark
& I sob, still—like a bloodstain, I spill, all over that
graceless memory, our backs bent over the opened
deer, arguing about how he ruined the heart, shrapnel proving the
bad shot, how funny, my loveless father playing god is a tradesman,
an expert in gut & exit, while I am prey
before the meal, threatened with violence while I learned its scent,
left to wash the gunsmoke from my hair, to wonder
how I’ll ever come up with an excuse for the blood.
shed then instructed me to remove the stomach.
Once I was in the heat of the beast,
I ripped thick sinew, fat, & muscle by hand. Then
he severed the heart’s tendons & touched
the cold organ to my cheek. This proximity like
a lead weight in my chest. He always wanted me to inherit
his instinct, like musk on a body bag--
death imagined &
then death administered & then death taken
into the mouth.
After placing the ribs in the oven to roast, I felt the gun
like it tapped at the back of my skull,
resented
my metal knowledge of its insides—how to cock a bullet
& prepare the spark, how to line the sight on
top of another body’s warmth,
where to miss, so it
suffers, & where to aim,
so my hands stay clean--
the order of things; Domain, Kingdom, Phylum,
Class, Order, Family—how a father can bend a son
over his knee & redden—on the day of that deer,
in a rage, he grabbed my coat to clean
the hunting knife, threatening more, & I sobbed at that fresh mark
& I sob, still—like a bloodstain, I spill, all over that
graceless memory, our backs bent over the opened
deer, arguing about how he ruined the heart, shrapnel proving the
bad shot, how funny, my loveless father playing god is a tradesman,
an expert in gut & exit, while I am prey
before the meal, threatened with violence while I learned its scent,
left to wash the gunsmoke from my hair, to wonder
how I’ll ever come up with an excuse for the blood.
Duncan Slagle is a queer poet and performer. He currently attends the University of Wisconsin-Madison through the First Wave Scholarship. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Black Napkin Press, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, & Cosmonauts Avenue. He loves birds.
Tricia Louvar lives in the Pacific Northwest and studied journalism, poetry, aesthetics, and documentary photography in college and beyond. She works in publishing as a visual artist and writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Brevity, Orion Online, Zyzzyva, and more. tricialouvar.com
Artist Statement: At a Saturday kaffeeklatsch, after splitting a piece of banana bread, I am the one nibbling pieces of its raw sugar left behind on the plate. Such an instantsummarizes my artistic impulses of focusing on the leftovers and the overlooked. I investigate the human condition and its relationship to impermanence with digital and analog tools.
Artist Statement: At a Saturday kaffeeklatsch, after splitting a piece of banana bread, I am the one nibbling pieces of its raw sugar left behind on the plate. Such an instantsummarizes my artistic impulses of focusing on the leftovers and the overlooked. I investigate the human condition and its relationship to impermanence with digital and analog tools.
