five poems
by Spencer Silverthorne
Watching Clarissa Explains it All after School in ‘92
You start a new school and immediately
want to skip to the window where maybe
that boy with the ladder will inch up
rung by rung to interrupt a painful
lesson on the failure of justice.
Ms. Herald still thinks you’re a doll
for wanting to sport her dangling,
silver-cross earrings; maybe your mom
has pair and maybe you can find
a way to wear them for Kevin
the next time he wants everyone
to know that no one should face
a window that’s not a camera.
It will remain shut through
the year in case anyone hops
in with all that strumming
from God — how did you get
on this side of trouble?
There’s no episode where your mom
will know how to fight Kevin’s call
for punishment against dangling peace
sign earrings at the front of the line.
Stranger by The Lake is on Criterion Two Months Before My Fortieth Birthday
I should say something about where I am,
but we’re here for the gushing in the brush.
I lost the lush fading to his geyser. I google
all the fish I refuse to commit to memory.
The repetition of parking a recalled Renault
beats the globalization of twinks shuffling to shore.
I could have used another twenty years in a spoiled
peace that only some shade of cedar could afford.
Should I worry about threats concerning my hemlines
or waterlines? If every killer keeps going through
a mustache phase, why do we insist on going out
to find anyone showing up to get the job done?
Why is it queer to have body, have horror, have it all
as an epistemic leering on the edge of a generational
jab? This memory lasts longer than what I should know
about some markings that turned up in a French cave.
By the time my birthday arrives, I wonder what I need
to survive, even if everyone else manifests an escape.
Every dive, every duck from blow, every stroke in the lake, \
feels like I’m worthy of cutting through someone’s wake.
Watching The Craft Four Months After My Fortieth Birthday
I used to think identifying with Sarah
meant that I was choosing love
over absolute power. I did not want
to spend the night calling toward the sky,
nor did I want the electricity coursing
through my body to become like a shark
in the hallways of a Los Angeles parochial school.
Though I wonder which saint would fight me?
To this day I want to keep the locks secure,
to scrawl the right sigil to ward off
the threats of irreality. I still close
my eyes at the flash of a scorpion’s claws
among the writhing snakes and maggots
foretelling another death of an ego.
Imagine still being a son wanting to be held
instead of the one wielding the stinging scene.
This is a lesson in earthly delights
when we confuse love with submission.
I Shouldn’t Like How You Sound Like Jacob Elordi’s American Accent
You don’t get to be you. You go to school to learn how to be
a good boy, and if you’re lucky, you pick up a thing or two about
the difference between just getting along and getting away with
liking the way he grips your mouth when he wants you to shut
it, to shift your face to the side, to get a good look at you.
You and I are too nice for this. We know people who would bruise.
The whole family should not say a word. It’s good to bounce
back from the rough. Sequence be damned, I’ll get along
with all the other boys. I’ll bring him back to you, as if I’m telling
the story wrong, like a parent who keeps echoing out of time,
will you get in the car NOW; everyone has heard
that before, and they keep telling me I would be fine;
as long as I found somewhere quiet to keep my niceness
tucked and quilted for a great relative singing praises in a den.
I can only keep myself antiquated for so long. So I just let it ‘
happen, and if you could make me nice again, because notice
how the nice ones let their flaws stick out like thread
baring from an heirloom doily, one that’s so easy to yank.
Watching Pamela Anderson’s Shelly Dance to “Shadows of The Night” Two Months After My Fortieth Birthday
Do you know what it’s like to be
seen again? I don’t have anything
new. I feel for the volcano that keeps
erupting and pluming the last of snow,
or whatever volcanoes do to remind
everyone else of their presence.
A would-be lover shared a clip
of a would-be drone descending
to the depths of some fantasy crater,
only the clip ends with a tabby flicking me off.
I am worth more than just one
flick. The whole thing was created
by a prompt like this one. Imagine
if I radioed the intelligence the real
heart of this utterance. I can’t submit
this to intelligence because it has an address.
This Boeing 777-200 ER would rattle me
even if I splurged for extra leg room.
I am Pamela Anderson in the middle aisle,
she becomes a middle-aged, gay fop,
but the audience will never be convinced.
They internalize the director’s retort
THIS IS HOW AUDITIONING WORKS,
which could be the first thing
you see at Customs in a G7
nation, and someone will always
want sugar from you if you’re role
is dimming. So you’re moved to do
squats in the 35th row even if you
left your cropped heather-gray
jumper in the overhead.
I am back from the shoulder roll
that went unappreciated, because
I thought you can see between
flashes of prose and intelligence.
Aurora Borealis for the singles crowd!
Yet, this prompt is for you and not
for anyone who’ll refuse to kiss
you forever in Gran Via.
Forget Iceland.
Forget auditioning and seatmates.
It should have lasted longer than the shadow,
but like a shadow, a kiss will make me
wish myself to be all iterations
of Pam Am or Pan Am.
The legacy shall live on.
I will cross hemispheres
to be that Bombshell
just for you; how else could
I say it full chest without Pat Benator!
SURRENDER ALL YOUR DREAMS
should be your first thought.
If you could only see me now,
If you could only see my wings
unshorn and fitted for return.
BIO: Spencer Silverthorne (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke where he teaches poetry, editing, and composition. His work has been published in Action, Spectacle, Black Warrior Review, Blue Earth Review, Dialogist, Gigantic Sequins, Maudlin House, and others. He lives in Fayetteville, NC.