CL Bledsoe & Michael Gushue: I Told You
The world is burning. Throwing hundred-dollar
bills into the flames won’t put out the fire.
The movie ends, but the film still jumps
the sprockets like two animals fucking.
We’re asleep in the aisles, wanting
another theater with more popcorn,
better seats, a movie we can learn to love.
Every spring, the lilies of the field grow
more cynical. They don’t like us hanging
around all the time. The fish in the sea,
and the fish in the air, and the fish stuck
in commuter traffic all have the same tattoo:
Not What I Expected. Because this is not
the kind of elevator shaft you can step into
and get a four-course meal at the bottom.
Instead it’s laundry baskets as far back
as the worst day. The doors open to a man
screaming that Jesus doesn’t like you anymore;
that’s why all your calls go to voicemail.
Poem Written On a Boneless Chicken Breast and Lobbed Through the Window of Our Decadent Lives
i
The problem with Abaddon is that it’s so hard
to feng shui. The curtains don’t match
the furniture; the rug doesn’t match
the fruit basket. Puce is not a color;
it’s a way of life. Those stairs are a mess,
can’t tell if they go up or down. The abyss
is what makes a house a home. That and dust.
And WD-40. And the constant screaming
that makes meditation a real chore. Speaking
of chores, here’s a toothbrush and a pin.
When you’re done with the living room, start on
the not-living room, the hiding-under-the-covers-
for-fear-of-monsters room, the room where we traded
our hearts for tinder, so they can splinter and burn.
ii
The after party for Armageddon was so over,
but the gift bags were a revelation. A swan
suspended in a vat of honey, a mask shaped
like burning. The horses of the Apocalypse nibbled
apples, sugar cubes, bones, Mount Rushmore.
Bottom line: you’ve no business being alive
on the surface of the earth where gravity
is required by law to hold you in place
like a stepmother who, as you’re begging her
to take you in until a spot opens up in a wilderness
program, says, “Please, we couldn’t possibly
spare any room with all the piles of money
around the house. How about waiting
until after we’ve all been thrown into the fire?”
CL BLEDSOE is the assistant editor for The Dead Mule and author of fourteen books, most recently the poetry collection Trashcans in Love and the flash fiction collection Ray’s Sea World. He lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.
MICHAEL GUSHUE is the co-founder with Dan Vera of Poetry Mutual. He co-curates the intermittent reading series Poetry at the Watergate with Deborah Ager. His chapbooks are Gathering Down Women (Pudding House Press), Conrad (Souvenir Spoon Books), and Pachinko Mouth (Plan B Press). He lives in Washington D.C.