Amanda Leal

Twyckenham Notes
Issue Sixteen
Summer 2023

LAST LIGHT

We weave through the Osceola Forest, golden light dusting
the spruce pines, diffused through the branches, their skirts
hemming the Tustenuggee Avenue. We carve our trail
through the town where you picked your brother up from prison,
the sun balanced like a golden dollar on the western shoulder,
and I tell you, The sun sets everywhere else in Florida,
but it never feels like this. You gaze out the window,
your lips parted, studying the curve of the avenue
as though your brother may be waiting, along the flooded embankments,
the fog lifting off the bramble like a spirit loosening
from its bones. I want to tell you that he is everywhere,
that your love carried him even in life, as you point out
the gas station that you stopped at together, dotted now
with travelers in the distance. I imagine when you first stepped out
of the car and appraised him, after five years, alongside the hills,
their backs arched in the distance, the dogwood trees
quivering with dew — and your brother, lean, prison tattoos
etched down his arms, black shading up to his jugular,
his round chin, identical to your own, still your brother
even with doubt that gathered like shadows around his eyes.
You saw it like the golden light that falls to the deserted road
in front of us, glittering in the rain. I want to tell you that it existed
even if only within us, the swells of amber silt in the boughs,
the neon signs of the gas station dwindling
in the rearview mirror, the last light shattering upon the asphalt.

ZE TRICERAPIST

We finally reach the front seats, parked along the wood chip trail,
beds of pine needles at the feet of the loblolly pines,
tables anchoring bouquets of Mylar yellow balloons,
spinning in the breeze, Easter baskets wrapped in cellophane,
my son scrambling into the hatchback trunk like a character
from a horror film, contorting his body over the seats,
his face still wet and red as though he has been boxing,
my palm blistering purple, a semi circle of bruises
where he bit down like a bear trap. He tosses forward my hoodie
that smells of cigarettes, Allan wrenches that fly
towards the windshield like throwing stars, a stuffed triceratops
my boyfriend catches by its floppy green head.
Bobbing its glittery horn towards me, he speaks to me
through the dinosaur, affecting a German accent,
his auburn stubble twitching into a smirk, my reflection
in his Ray Bans shades, incredulous in the passenger seat,
stifling laughter as the dinosaur says, “Hello! I am ze tricerapist.
Your triceratops therapist. I am here to valk you
through ze tantrum. Zee? You are already starting to zee
ze humor in ze situation.” The sun falls on the windshield,
curved in the groove of the wiper tracks like a rainbow,
and I realize I will never let this person go, laughing
as the air conditioning blows my dreamcatcher
over the rear view mirror, my son quieting as he peers
over his own car seat. My boyfriend wiggles the ventriloquist dinosaur
as it says, “Ze child now is turning ze corner. Zou see? Zour attitude
shapes zour reality.” My son slides his body over the seat,
into his five-point harness, his plastic sandals on the center console,
and I tell the tricerapist that I want to get married,
my boyfriend’s smile behind the plush toy, fragments of light
shifting along the dashboard, shattered by the slash pines
overhead, as he grips the wheel and moves us down the trail.

QUAKE

When my friend busts through the double doors, and finds me
in the hallway, her hair is stiff, looped and tangled still,
as though molded to the shape of his hands,
blue-black in the fluorescent lights, her hands miming
the action of tying it back with her butterfly clip,
as though she has forgotten how to move
in her own body. Her chest splotches in thundercloud
shapes, her eyes sparkling with tears, as she tells me
about the man who attacked her, her hair entwined
in his fingers as though caught in machinery,
the linoleum coming up to slam the wind from her lungs
as he threw her to the ground, his face in hers
when he bashed his own skull into her forehead,
as though trying to open a coconut. I imagine the moment
when she thought no one could help her, the echo
of her screams, the man’s breath in her face,
his fingers at the nape of her neck, yanking her
by her scalp. I hold her hands as they quake,
her whole body shivering, her lip piercing trembling
in the hallway lights, and I wonder if there is much beyond this
that a man could do to a woman, if there is any further
confidence he could have dug out with his fingernails.
Beneath her heavy Mexican eyelashes, her eyes
are wide and vacant, gazing into the hallway,
and I know that none of my anger will pull her back,
so I hold the space beside her, as she grips my hand,
her lips parted, her body shaking like an engine turning over,
her hair tumbling from the butterfly clip.

AMANDA LEAL is a 29 year-old poet from Lake Worth FL. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in issues of CAROUSEL, Tampa Review, Pine Row Press, and others.

BACK

ISSUE SIXTEEN HOME