[Had they split his throat]

by Dan Alter

Chris Chow

Had they split his throat like Moses’ rock so his singing would break that way? Back in Black bled from Peter Fischer’s boom box, shouldered, its solo blistered all the way to the meet. They had no-one else as slight, so I handed my body over. Peter

a weight class above me wore his anger like a helmet, picked out blond fro floating around broken-out face. What Black were we Back in? Locker rooms, hard edges of guitars buzzed through the dim days. Week after week I strove not to be pinned:

cut loose from the noose Bon Scott cried or sang or screeched his acid melody. Young white men were hurt & wanted you to hurt too. Yes I was taken down in Dane, headlocked in Door Creek. Fitchburg, Verona. The ref counting three. Out I went

again, singleted & bootied, partly starved to make the weight, into another small boy’s anonymous, mastering arms.

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Dan Alter’s poems and reviews have been published in journals including Field, Fourteen Hills, Pank, and Zyzzyva; his first collection, My Little Book of Exiles, won the Poetry Prize for the 2022 Anne and Robert Cowan Writer’s Awards. He lives with his wife and daughter in Berkeley and makes his living as an IBEW electrician. He can be found online at https://danalter.net/ .