Alice
Alice among the thorns. Alice,
unsure where her other shoe is.
Alice, the best she’ll ever be,
forgotten on the side of the road.
A mess in the bathroom sink.
A mess on the floor. Alice wishes
she’d cared enough to make
a better choice back when she had
choices. Talking to the neighbors.
Talking to the checkout lady. Alice
has everything to say and says
nothing. Alice, lugging her things
to the dumpster. Alice, watching
the squirrels play in the parking lot.
She stands at the entrance so no
one can run over them. She doesn’t
know who to tell or what to tell
them. Everything will be all right? No.
Nothing will ever be all right again.
But it will be.
BBQ
We smeared jam on the toddler to keep
the wasps off at the BBQ. She liked to bonk
their stingers and count loudly. One. Two. Many.
None of them were mean enough
to sting. It was a Saturday, which is just
another way of saying it's all over for another
week. They were serving Frenchman's baked
beans, but the French were so busy marching
for union rights no one could eat their beans.
On everything else, we gorged. Brisket. Burnt
ends. Our time. It was the day before
the last day before daycare started. We could
no longer expect our dreams to drift away.
We had all of our lives to cry about it. No
one was coming with more cornbread.
We would just have to make due.
Fat Old Sun
Fat old sun, an orange beset
by ants. They’ll never get it home
no matter how pitifully the queen
yelps. The day is falling
toward night and I can’t find
myself. I’ve looked everywhere.
The drip of morning, coalescing
into alchemy, wasn’t particularly
promising. But all that’s gone, now.
I’ve never seen anything like you
and I don’t want to again. Tell me
my name, and I’ll let it fall, Frere
Jacques all over the windowpane.
A patina of meaning somewhere
outside. Or so they say. All I ever
saw was skint knees and shame.
I’m out of chocolate, which is better
in most ways than hope. Lie
in my bed a little while. Just until
I fall asleep. Then you can rob
me blind.
Forget
I can forget you like I forgot
the good days, already, that time
you took my arm on the sidewalk
and talked about the movie
we’d just seen, while I tried so hard
to think of something about the structure,
color pallet, anything approaching
the level of your effortless intelligence.
You got mad at the way I’d step
in front of cars, saying they didn’t have
time to see me. Why were you so afraid
when you were drinking yourself
to death already? Or did this mean
you were afraid for me? I could never
quite match your pace, your arm in mine,
but you didn’t want to hold my hand.
I spent that walk working up the courage
to ask if I could kiss you for a little while,
there, in the parking lot, since I wouldn’t
see you for a week, at best, but I don’t
remember if you said yes. You never wanted
to kiss me, and it took me way too long
to realize why.
The time you called
after I told you I’d talked to my therapist
about leaving you, you said the kindest
things anyone ever has, though
I’ve forgotten them. Something about
being a good and kind man. About how much
I’d helped you, been there for you.
You
watched murder shows constantly, and I’d
joke about how you were going to kill me,
bury me in the yard and build a koi pond
above me. Anyone who knocked on your
door was a traveling koi salesman. All part
of your plan. It was the only thing you’d let
me rib you about.
You would call drunk
in the middle of the night to lecture me
about how I wasn’t sharing my feelings
with my sister or establishing good boundaries.
An hour, two hours of you telling me you
don’t want to be in a relationship with
someone who can’t deal with their feelings,
and when I’d tell you I missed you, you’d
say don’t miss me so much, slurring
the words in between drinks. I won’t forget
that, or the times you tried to convince me
I didn’t feel the way I felt, think what
I thought.
You introduced me to your mother
but were angry the whole time. Our language
was begging and lies. Months later, you tried
to convince me I’d never loved you. I’d just
wanted you to save me. But I was so much
better before I met you. I will find him again.
I Am a Ghost
I don’t know if it’s morning or night, yet,
but they’re already in the hall, door pried
off hinges, lights painting the walls.
Their little radio machine beeps. Sometimes,
I like to make it surge like a Theremin.
I saw one at a Sonic Youth show. They
get really excited when I do that, talking
in their little headsets. Their voices are
the mutters of worms, chewing a corpse.
They wave the machine around. They have
a machine that looks for cold spots.
They’re very sure of what they’ll find,
even though they never find it. Always
when I’m trying to read, to watch TV
on the radio waves. I thought this was
supposed to be my time of peace. Not kids
looking for proof they haven’t wasted
it all in vain, that there will be another
chance, floating in the dark, messing with
teenagers and Travel Channel Documentarians.
CL Bledsoe Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than thirty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, The Bottle Episode, and his newest, Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, as well as his latest novels If You Love Me, You’ll Kill Eric Pelkey and The Devil and Ricky Dan. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his child.
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