Alex Tretbar
Poisson d’avril
after a collage by John Ashbery
A paper fish has been following me
and by that I mean it’s part of me.
The fish whispers Kick me
and all of earth’s children
do so. I treat All Fools’
Day like any other
holiday: with a day off
kilter, to the races, beat.
And I tell myself the cure for pain
describes itself in the form of a circle
perforated, numbered, finite—a lie
that hasn’t been swallowed yet
or whose liar forgot to tell it,
bedlam budding
everywhere like hell
trapped inside of a matchstick.
Not A to Z, understand, but Z
to A again. I gently shake
my head at the funeral
which is made possible in part
by the bequest of many flowers.
A train leaves Chicago traveling sixty
billion miles per hour, it is one hundred
and thirteen degrees Fahrenheit,
and I want to crawl
into a hole. How long will it take
for every world to pour back
into a thimble? The women of earth cry
Come back to the light but I thought
I was already there.
A paper fish has been following me
and by that I mean it’s part of me.
The fish whispers Kick me
and all of earth’s children
do so. I treat All Fools’
Day like any other
holiday: with a day off
kilter, to the races, beat.
And I tell myself the cure for pain
describes itself in the form of a circle
perforated, numbered, finite—a lie
that hasn’t been swallowed yet
or whose liar forgot to tell it,
bedlam budding
everywhere like hell
trapped inside of a matchstick.
Not A to Z, understand, but Z
to A again. I gently shake
my head at the funeral
which is made possible in part
by the bequest of many flowers.
A train leaves Chicago traveling sixty
billion miles per hour, it is one hundred
and thirteen degrees Fahrenheit,
and I want to crawl
into a hole. How long will it take
for every world to pour back
into a thimble? The women of earth cry
Come back to the light but I thought
I was already there.
Alex Tretbar won the 2022 PEN America Prison Writing Contest in Poetry, and was a finalist for the 2021 PEN/Edward Bunker Prize in Fiction. His poems and nonfiction appear in or are forthcoming from Bat City Review, Poetry Northwest, Meridian, Buckmxn Journal, HAD, Southeast Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri. Website: alextretbar.com Twitter and Instagram: @alex_tretbar