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.