Obi Taswell

To the Man in the Black Pick-Up at the Yonkers Gas Station

after Chen Chen & Chappell Roan

I’m sorry my first instinct was judgement, 

& I’m sorry my judgement was harsh. 

I’m sorry I called it instinct when it has 

taken years of training. I’m sorry the flames

etched & sizzling on the sides of your truck,

& I’m sorry the country’s embarrassment of a flag

boasted on the bandana suctioned to your skull. 

I’m sorry I saw this & white man & thought: 

danger. After, I’m sorry, I wondered if you 

thought I was a girl & only let me go because

of ladies first, & I’m sorry, I keep calling you

a man in this poem & I didn’t stop to ask.

I want to tell you “The Giver” was gushing 

from my Subaru stereo & upon my cut tank 

a sketched profile of two girls, their cherry lips, 

& I’m sorry I want to use this as an excuse.

You ain’t gotta tell me was blasting 

from Chappell’s chest & I’m sorry, I know,

my assumptions flooded the air in my car

worse than the smoke from the wildfires.

All you did was wave me on when we 

reached the street together & I smiled 

& lifted my hand & wrapped my teeth 

around a thank you. I imagine you 

have not thought about me once since & I 

managed, I’m sorry, to turn the simplest 

& kindest of moments into a spiderweb 

of politics. Unlike the guanacos, I cannot, 

I’m sorry, look up your species to learn more 

about you on my home computer, &, I’m sorry, 

I also would not want to. I’m sorry, I did not 

mean for this to be an ode, & I hope 

it doesn’t read as one. Instead, I trust you 

will not find me naive when I tell you this

is a love letter. I wish I could say what’s

in my nature, but I have been practicing

replacing every apology with gratitude,

& I want to thank you, that the next time

we meet, this, right here, is where we’ll start.

Bathroom Pastoral Without the Pastoral

I french-kissed god beside a toilet in a penthouse.

Outside the door, a hundred others, all god

to someone, rhythming the roof below

us with their heels. I know 

what you’re thinking: god isn’t real,

and if she is she wouldn’t sin in the stall

on the top of a midtown skyscraper. 

You should know: you’re wrong.

God has skin like a just-husked hazelnut

and she’ll kiss you like the world will end.

I knew she was god because 

the last time I met her in the bathroom 

I was coffined face-up on the floor 

between the bathtub and the base 

of the toilet while she lay beside me and held 

ice to the ravines running over

my spinning skull. Which is to say perhaps 

this isn’t a pastoral but a prayer: that god

will come again and again, and I

each time will remember to open

the door and let her in. 

Obi Taswell (they/them) is a poet, abolitionist, and educator based in New York. They have received fellowships from Brooklyn Poets, Saltonstall, Vermont Studio Center, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, the Juniper Institute, and more. Their work has been published in Beyond Queer Words, Lucky Jefferson, Qwerty Magazine, and elsewhere. Instagram: @obi.taswell.

Artwork: “Can You Hear the Years?” by Daniel Lurie

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