February

February


February 3

This morning they are tiptoeing elephants,
listening to the cats
make love down by the water, as am I, as must we all.
I dreamed last night my foot detached itself, flopped
away from the mat (this is all they allow me
to sleep on. The plight
I must endure! The outrage none of you feel could feed
all the orphans of China for decades)
and drowned itself

in the toilet. I woke feeling damply evil,
toilet paper
underneath my toenails. I woke in India,
nuzzled by elephants who'd come
to stab my eyes with their coffee breath,
my arms, oh my arms.

They put their trunks under my tongue (imagine the agony
of tasting uncured elephant leather).
They fed me oatmeal with
cranberries in it, waited till I went BM, and took it home

to show their children. They patted my head,
became cliché, more
than that, became film, melted in the light,
threw shadows of incineration
like an Iron Maiden concert I went to one time with a girl

who wouldn't even let me look down her shirt, and went
to commercial. I am waiting, saving my thoughts
to feed their little plastic
cups. When they lumber back through the cage door,
I'll light the cup, throw

it in their faces, run through the door and find her,
out there where the music
is bad and long. Now, all I need is Prometheus to come, steal
their coughs, share them with me and burn, burn.

There will be buzzards. But that's my liver's
concern, not mine.



February 5


Woke early or late, something in the vent
in the ceiling above my bed.
I used to keep my nickels in there

so the orderlies wouldn't steal them.
Had to move fast
so they didn't see me in the monitors.
Stood

on the bed and saw two dots of light, moving
in unison. Thought it was a foo fighter flying low.

Took the vent cover off. Some kind of animal, a wild
jape. Small, blue fur huddled in the breeze.
I took it out, fed it

a little from dinner I was able to vomit up.
(Japes often
have extraordinarily vicious teeth,
and yet often lack developed jaw muscles

necessary to chew due to a viral epidemic
which has stricken
the population in recent years.) I named it Tourniquet

because I've never been able to spell that word.
Hid her (the sex of japes
are easily differentiated by observing the length

of the nose in adults) under the bed until lights on.
Then I snuck
her out to the yard and showed her the fountain.
(japes love water, being

predominantly found on small islands,
far removed from human
life.) I nudged her towards the water,
leaned out to show her the statue

of St. Christopher in the center.
I thought it would be funny to watch
her try to swim, little thing.
I splashed water on her until she cried,
loud, braying.

She clambered back into my shirt sleeve,
snuffling quietly into my elbow.
I took her back to the room,
hid her in my sock drawer and waited.



February 9


The slow line of traffic dead
ends into the cafeteria, eyes limp

across the slack faces of tray-bearers
exiting singly, drifting through lanes;

I am damp cardboard mashed potatoes.
I am boiled meat. I am unsweetened

peas. I smell of rot and bleach.
I carry my tray of myself

to a thin plastic chair, a creaking table,
slipping crumbs into my pocket

to feed my jape whose ass
is swelling melon-heavy already
from breakfast's shame.


February 12

They've got souls like mood rings, brown
and dirty when they're grounded, (on top
of me, their sticks full of shock

like I'd told a surprisingly funny joke) so full of
grey you'd think their parents were poor. But
this is a lie, souls

aren't colors or things used
to make points. They are nothing more
than the cold breeze slipping over the aluminum
siding on a storage building. The soul

isn't chocolate melting in a box.
The soul is melted,
melting new, each day. This is its purpose;
not to be,
but being.


February 16


After milk, we're moved to
(useless, anyway) ears
so we can't hear the cries
of all the baby lards, sleeping
unhappy in their pens. Grown
without bone, nibble sized
so their teeth won't come in.
See them waddle from sleep mat
to chocolate drip, sticks thrust
under pelvis for leverage.

When the expiration manager comes
with his pellet gun, shoots their fleshy brains,
it will be Lodo, equal opportunity hire, slow
as river ice, who will gather these sticks
and pass them on to the youngest, whose feathers
have barely fallen from their skinless bodies.




C. L. Bledsoe

Posted over on The Hamilton Stone Review