“The Weather” by C.L. Bledsoe & Michael Gushue

March 20, 2024Posted by

C.L. Bledsoe & Michael Gushue

THE WEATHER

Imagine the Earth is eating crackers in bed.
The crumbs are our lost days. They look toward
the coup de grace of the great Shaking Out
of the Quilt. The weather is always late to the party
and never brings wine. It stands in the corner checking
dating apps on its phone while everyone waits
for the thunder. See how easy it is to get off track?
And paying attention has gotten so expensive.
We were talking about my ex whose pants
you tried to get into by distracting each leg
with your pretty words. How would that work
in the afterlife? All the people we fucked
gabbing about how well we did. Or didn’t.
It’s my word against theirs you might think.
At least there weren’t any witnesses.
But there are always witnesses—millions
of them, numberless as crumbs. What do they
want? Someone to notice they’re leaving,
to pretend to miss them when they’re gone.
Is that too much to ask? Check yes or no.
 

—from Rattle #83, Spring 2024
Tribute to Collaboration

__________

C.L. Bledsoe & Michael Gushue: “One of us will come up with a start to a poem. It might be a title or a line or a few lines that seem promising. Then he’ll email that start to the other. If it sparks something, that one will add more lines—how many will depend on how far the initial lines take him. After this, we go back and forth. Often, one of us will decide to cut or edit what’s already gone before, regardless of who wrote it, and that’s fine because that’s how the poem is evolving. We trust each other, and we can separate ego from the process and our faith in the poem. We have a similar approach and style regarding certain images and ideas, a kind of shorthand or Morse code that comes in handy as the poem coalesces. We both have a sense of when a poem has a good shape, has gone satisfactorily from point A to point B, and has clicked shut at the end. After that, one of us might go over one or two more times to smooth it out, and then we’ll move it over to the finished file. People have said that they can’t tell which of us has written what parts of a poem. As you can see, our process is informal and improvisatory. It’s a back-and-forth game that more often than not surprises both of us with the result.”

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