Press Play to hear Natalie Easton read her poem “Awkward Phase Starring David Tennant”
Awkward Phase Starring David Tennant
At fifteen my sister shored up the walls of her room
with five flavors of glossy boy-band grin &
I observed her critically. At thirty three I am now
too old for an awkward phase, too aware of how
when people gawp at you, I feel guilty just for being
part of the audience: one of countless fans
who’ve called you the Lonely Angel, who’ve
called you Casanova. It’s easy to fall for your intensity
& trust you as a momentary truth. Granted, you know
something of distraction, too; the irony of Hamlet’s
star-crossed fate is that you don’t believe in astrology,
& until you leaned against the pillar to make eye contact
with the camera & recite his soliloquy, I didn’t either.
Admittedly I’ve seen every role you’ve played, but
I favor the Doctor: carefree & sure of himself, able
to fix anything. Still, I cringe when someone encroaches
on your personal space, drops another screwdriver
innuendo. (I might break the rules of time, but I would
never do that to you.) In character you can’t die; this
is true all the time. At the end my mother didn’t say
“the moment has been prepared for”; she said, “I’ll be
all right.” Sometimes you almost make those words
disappear back into the darkness of her mouth, & when it
glints with her saliva I can see the sky with its dead stars
pretending to give off light, & nothing ever changed.
Mr. Tennant, you’re enticing, no mistake—but
what this fantasy finally rests on is the idea that someone
can travel back through the void,
& you make it look so easy.