The Friday Poem: Twin Peaks, by Alice Miller
Cigarettes and alcohol have restrictions on advertising due to their adverse health effects. Why not junk food? (Getty Images)
A poem from Alice Miller’s new collection What Fire.
Twin Peaks
Under the waterfall,
that red room blooms, backwards voices
squeeze through speakers, the TV drips
scenes like blood—ceaselessly,
then stop. For some
years I dated a director
but got tired of being a show.
Got stuck in the nineties, plastic-wrapped
girls, black lodge drapes, they told me
the old bad news when I was taking a splinter
out of my foot, prodding my pink raw
flesh with a needle—wait,
my mother said, wait till she gets it out
(unspoken creature lurking beneath skin)—
but now I remember, they didn’t wait,
they went ahead and told me anyway.
I guess I never got it out.
That needle’s still in my hand.
The Friday Poem is edited by Chris Tse. Submissions are currently closed and will open again later this year.
Alice Miller
Alice Miller is the author of a novel, More Miracle than Bird, and three collections of poetry. Born and raised in Wellington, New Zealand, and having lived in a few corners of the world, Alice is currently based in Berlin, Germany.
