Josh Tvrdy
Two POEMS
The Out-&-Proud Boy Bakes Away His Farmer's Tan
I’m still straining to be beautiful. Beautiful,
which means wanted. I watch a lumbering bee
smack the side of the metal grill, aiming
for the exhaust hole. Watch a blue jay rummage
through the grass, frantic, like it’s lost
a credit card, while the picket fence stands
aloof, wearing a lizard like a brooch. Every day
I grow less young. Something must have burst
in the folds of my lawn chair, because this
is the third tiny spider I’ve found scrabbling
across my body. Spider three, caught
in the tangles of my happy trail. Are you happy,
I ask, coaxing the creature onto my finger.
I don’t know if I should kill it or kiss it.
I’ve been fucked by closeted men who wonder
the very same thing—pumping their hips
like oil rigs, gritting their teeth. I’m everything
they want and loathe. They’re everything
I can’t stop craving. A dump and run. Another
man who cums and shoves his hairy legs
back inside the jean-holes.
Pretending I Didn't Carry Them With Me
A green fly, belly-up, decays on the sill.
The sun flames its husk a gorgeous
jade, and I don’t have the heart
to sweep it into the trash, away
from my view of the lonely
basketball court, bottle tabs
glinting like Mom’s fillings
whenever she laughs in light.
People I love are beginning
to die. Parker’s overdose. Jaden’s
cancer. Sandy’s brain. Dad’s cancer
still so small the doctors can’t
find it. Every day he waits
for growth, and every day I don’t
call him. I’d like to believe my quiet
a kindness, my shimmery voice
a barbed reminder: my son’s still gay.
This year, I plan on piercing
my nose, strutting in sheer
blouses and velvet tights, whatever
beauty demands, and beauty demands
distance. If they saw me—their pretty boy—
they’d wince, pretend I wasn’t
theirs. And I’d pretend their shame
meant nothing. It’s better this way,
for everyone. But whenever I look
inside a mirror, I see everything
I can’t stop missing—
Dad’s lips, Mom’s cheeks, nobody
speaking, nobody sad, all of us
held in the lines of my face.
Josh Tvrdy (he/him) is a writer from Tucson, Arizona. Winner of a 2021 Pushcart Prize, he recently graduated with an MFA in Poetry from North Carolina State University. He won Gulf Coast’s 2018 Prize in Poetry, and his work can be found in POETRY, Georgia Review, the Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. He lives and teaches in Raleigh, NC. Find him @JoshTvrdy on Twitter, or head to his website: www.joshtvrdy.com.