Five Poems by CL Bledsoe

 

Bring Out Your Dead

 

A woman goes from bed to bed,

each night, pulling her cart. “Bring

out your dead,” she says. Workers wake,

shuffle to the window, where

she’s squared up to receive

what they dump. One drops the last time

he skinny dipped with his cousin,

before they learned shame. That

cousin is dead now, or a corporate

lawyer. Another, his hands, stained

with charcoal and paper cuts, paint

under the nails, palms smudged. Leaving

them clean and soft. At each house,

the bodies pile up, eyes brighter

than those who collapse back

into bed. Tomorrow is a big

day. The Kowalski Report. Traffic.

 

A Moon Bear Named Carl

 

I went outside to catch the moon

bear as it fell. My first mistake.

Imagine fur so thick wind sheer

gave up and went over to its friend

Dave’s house to complain. The softest

murder, the warmest throat rend.

 

I was trying to be of use. I watched

 

it slip, through my homemade

telescope. Stumbling home from

the bar. Too much pickled salmon

and mead. It tripped, fell clean

across a crater, bounced off a distracted

seal in the Sea of Tranquility,

 

and ricocheted toward DC. Bright

 

honey trail oozing across the sky.

Arms out, elbows braced, I aimed

my hope for its squirming belly

to keep the greedy ground wanting.

I needed a fourth for bridge. Now,

I only need a second and third. 

 

Eating the Sun

 

Who among us hasn't eaten the sun

just to hurry things up? An existential

sort of palate cleanser. Outrunning

the wolves requires exceptional

hamstrings. And then what will they

eat? Sometimes, you have to take

the bad with the worse and be glad

there isn’t pudding. Some people,

all they have is a vanity plate and

a list of demands no one will ever

read. Present company avoided.

It’s not the fur that makes you sneeze,

it’s knowing that nothing will ever

taste as good as your heart. I don’t

mind sharing as long as you take

me dancing, after. Really, just a

glance in my direction every now

and then to keep me focused. A man

will walk into an empty room and

knock just so no one thinks he’s

there for nefarious reasons. The truth

is, he’s there for the candy dish.

The way footsteps on wood distract

from the slowing heart. I wonder if

the hardest part of getting the sun down

is knowing everything after will be

dark and cold, the wolves howling,

still able to track you by scent while

you stumble, arms thrown out, trying

to find something firm to rest against.  

 

Ersatz Chemistry

 

A meaningless topic of conversation,

a mostly believable laugh, various pitches

of huhs. This is how my days bleed out,

dying in the soil. Someone has found

a really exciting brand of butter. Mornings

are the hardest time of year. Don’t think

too much about how you’ll spend more

time with these people than with your own

family, your couch, whatever it is you love.

You have no reasonable choice.

A grownup learns to master the art of not

screaming in the elevator. How much time,

per week, do you put into thinking about

decorative soaps, a new recipe whose

ingredients you can’t pronounce, the void

waiting outside those glass windows

into which we are throwing the precious

hours of our lives because it’s the path

of least resistance?

 

Good Things

 

Everyone will tell you to wait, but

none of them will tell you to get

ready while you wait. Do some

stretches. Take a class on financial

literacy. Learn to be someone you

can stand. When love comes, it will

spill its coffee on your shirt in an

elevator, so always carry those

detergent markers for stains. You’ll

be trudging along trying to be

thankful for the overdraft fees when

a leaf slaps you just right and your

eyes rest on someone who’s just

dropped their book in traffic. Rush

to help them and hope to God it’s

not Atlas Shrugged. All of this is

a lie, of course. Love comes as

they’re lowering her into the grave.

As he pulls the door quietly behind

him, wishing you good luck next

time. As the sun shadows over their

heads while they hold hands

somewhere you’ve never been.

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than twenty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, Trashcans in Love, Grief Bacon, and his newest, Driving Around, Looking in Other People's Windows, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and the forthcoming The Saviors.

Bledsoe co-writes the humor blog How to Even, with Michael Gushue located here: https://medium.com/@howtoeven

His own blog, Not Another TV Dad, is located here: https://medium.com/@clbledsoe

He’s been published in hundreds of journals, newspapers, and websites that you’ve probably never heard of. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.