Brandon Thurman
Two Poems
Mosquito
You were there every Sunday, with your unspokens
& praise reports, your butch hair neatly combed,
plucking along on your guitar from the front pew
while the song leader—a married woman, whose side
you never left—belted out her hymns. Every week,
you went home alone. You went home alone,
& did what? Fishing? Women’s magazines? A song
you could play behind closed doors in praise of
no god? The next Sunday, you’d slump straight
to your pew, open your guitar case, and begin to tune,
the strings creaking tighter, their twangs whining out
into the air. Behind you, the other ladies would shake
their tambourines loose & free, off-beat. Some Sundays
you’d bring your nephew, & I’d hide out with him
in the backroom of the church’s basement. We’d slit
our palms with my penknife & taste the other’s
blood. The Bible beside us cried, Thou shalt not
eat the blood of any creature, for its blood is its life. Your name
was Spanish for Little John, but everyone called you
Skeeter. At Sunday night bonfires in your backyard,
you’d lean your head slightly towards the song
leader’s shoulder. The mosquitoes would swarm
at the edges of the smoke cloud. A fake deer,
pocked with arrow holes, had camouflaged itself
in the unmown lawn. Anytime a mosquito
would land on the song leader’s skin, you’d slap
its body flat, then wipe her blood off in the grass.
Interpreter
Let’s start with the punch line:
Will you marry me? the giant asked
& then lowered his beloved’s
snarl of limbs to the ground.
As a kid, I would have said anything
to surprise your serious face
into laughter. Any time one of my jokes
would fall flat, you’d deadpan,
Must be a deaf joke. My childish ears
heard bad, heard not funny, but when
I asked, Why aren’t deaf jokes funny?
you said, Some things aren’t meant for you
to understand. You told me about your friend
who, able to hear for the first time, cried
to learn that the sunlight made no sound
as it struck the grass. At Dad’s church
in Chicago, you’d interpreted God’s own words
on stage, your hands casting shadows
under the spotlights. After God,
in his inexplicable way, called
Dad to a backwoods church in Ohio,
no one in the congregation needed you
to help them understand anymore. Still
you carried your stereo onto the altar,
pressed play, & let the music channel through
your body, dance into your hands. Once
I walked in on you in your bedroom,
your eyes closed, grasping at prayers
with no one in the room to listen.
You stood there in a long silence
that reminded me of the one after you’d speak
in tongues on Sundays. We’d all wait
for someone to interpret, to tell us
what God wanted us to hear. My own brain
was always bloated with words I’d sift through
to see if any could’ve been placed there
by a god, but I only ever found curse words
& punch lines from 1,000 Squeaky Clean
Jokes for Kids. Some jokes are a wink. Some,
a middle finger. Some, a wall. Jesus teased,
Why do you sieve out the gnat but swallow
the camel? In a medical emergency, I’m told
you have to make sure the patient doesn’t choke
on their own tongue. In the medicine cabinet,
you always kept a special bar of soap for washing
out my mouth. Years later, all my dirty words
still cling to your furniture like old smoke.
When I asked, Why aren’t deaf jokes funny?
you told the joke again, this time
with your hands: The deaf giant
fell in love with a beautiful maiden,
so small she could fit in the palm
of his hand. One day he picked her up,
lifted her gently in front of his face,
& asked, “Will you marry me?” Signing
the word marry, you clasped
your hands together fast, & then,
miming the giant’s grief,
gaped down into what
your language had done.
Brandon Thurman is the author of the chapbook Strange Flesh (Quarterly West, 2018). A 2021 Gregory Djanikian Scholar, his poetry can be found in Adroit Journal, Beloit Poetry Journal, Nashville Review, Sixth Finch, and others. He lives in the Arkansas Ozarks with his husband and son. You can find him online at brandonthurman.com or on Twitter @bthurman87.