Josh Tvrdy


Church Board Interrogation

When you were young, did you ever hear demonic voices?

 

Something was always whispering Khaki 

cargo shorts are fashionable, 

 

and I believed it.

 

Could you describe how that voice sounded?

 

Like Big Bird

in a snakeskin skirt.

 

Did it ever command things of you?

 

Made me thread Mom’s hair

with leftover noodles

 

while she napped 

on the couch. She dreamed

 

her right eye 

turned meatball, her left 

 

a blooming onion.

 

Was that all? 

 

Made me run

my tongue

 

along a light-bulb’s 

bald head.

 

Did you ever try to banish the voice? 

 

Once I pulled a baby blue 

snake, floss-thin and seven-feet long,

 

from my left nostril. I have sneezed

many miracles.

 

Did the voice ever tell you its name?

 

A Breadstick Sells Itself To The Wettest Mouth

 

That was its name?

 

No, that was its wisdom. 


Josh Tvrdy is a writer from Tucson, Arizona. A winner of a 2021 Pushcart Prize, he recently graduated with an MFA in Poetry from North Carolina State University, where he received the 2019 Academy of American Poets Prize. He won Gulf Coast's 2018 Prize in Poetry, and he was a fellow at the 2017 Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets. His work can be found or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, The Adroit Journal, Court Green, and Hobart. He waits tables in Raleigh, North Carolina.