Two Poems
by Adam Tavel
The Losing Quarter
for my father
Since failure like whiskey downed
at a funeral churns raw, since
prayer is another cowboy pistoling
need into the sky, since friends
are a maniple of unreturned calls
that leave me swiveling
this rickety stool, since the barkeep ignores
my empty & since my father's
tired heart pumps
through another decade miles away
I brave the losing quarter out. Shotgun formation:
another incomplete pass to the check-down man,
another toss to the sidelines
as if stopping the clock would save
this embarrassment, one more slant route
would salvage this game of sacks
& third-and-longs, of bobbled passes
over the middle, receivers
sprinting beyond the burn
into something like acceptance, the clean
sweat of the beaten. Fuck these Redskins
slurs the drunk scabbing his label
beside me. The camera zooms & pans:
the crowd shuffles slowly
to a dark expanse of lot
where they'll inch back to highway past
carts of stale pretzels, three dollar
bottled water & bargain-priced programs
wrinkled from hours clutched
in vendors' fists. Centipede traffic,
my father's heart, the hospital of our failures,
I'll stumble home to tire swing
& backyard dew, the good moon
lighting my Hail Mary, my spiral
for imaginary hands.
The Magicians' Warehouse
Here a box of broken wands. Here
a woman sawed in two. My fingers
upon her country of intestine
and vein. She sighs. It makes for a long day.
Boxes of handkerchiefs
gather dust among the collapsible
swords and doves
nesting in stovepipe hats.
Who will help carry these tricks
to my trunk? After a hard night drinking
a man is much like a woman sawed
in two. A man cuffed in a barrel
is a short lesson in panic.
Adam Tavel's poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Ariel, and The Apple Valley Review, among others. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Wor-Wic Community College on Maryland's Eastern Shore.