NADINE HITCHINER
Memoir of a Twerk, Read to a Dark Room
in the evening, i drag myself
out of god’s deathbed.
ask, did u love ur mother
enough to imagine her? do i still exist irl?
& tell my mom to pls stop calling me
a child in her prayers. he says, woman,
with a violence that, 7 yrs later, in the changing
room at Bridal Dream i will still see: the ribs poking
out as if to make another human being
from myself. i walk again, the zinc
streets of his acne
chest, after dark & in those blue stilettos
of my fingertips. there’s a field
4 this kind of thing: even his hip –
a seizure in mine.
O, home-made boyship,
wyd? it’s dark here,
read the room. y the mouth
full of rain, hänsel?
y the crouton
in the birdbath?
sb was me yesterday.
felt all the things
& brought nothing home.
here’s a fact,
without reason
to believe it:
u are both, comet & dinosaur.
Some ppl don’t believe in evolution, u know.
s/w (on youtube)
i looked for glue
& paper. held my arms
to my hips like a screw clamp.
my laptop on the laundry
basket, a video
on how to twerk full screen
as if for the light
to outgrow darkness lol. i can’t dance
to save my life
& i can’t expect much from air.
i prayed, God, this ass
would look so fine if it could twerk,
& God, this body would feel so good if i felt it.
Nadine Hitchiner (she/her) is a German poet and author of the chapbook Bruises, Birthmarks & Other Calamities (Cathexis Northwest Press, 2021). She was a Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has been published in Midway Journal, GASHER, Red Ogre Review and others. She lives in her hometown with her husband and their dog. Find her on twitter: @nadinekwriter