Driving Home From Work

C.L. Bledsoe

 

She measures out her life in the changing

of the seasons she can taste through her car windows.

On muggy nights that must be Autumn,

she smells rain and wonders

if both sinks are still full of dishes

or just one. Time is roaches, time is ants

looking for a lapse. There are miles

sniffing around her kitchen,

of laundry, Kevin's baseball uniform

is dirty. She's been out of socks for days.

 

It wears her down, knowing,

someday, maybe already, she'll be that old woman

complaining behind the counter, that all the other girls

are polite to and pity and the boys just don't like.

 

The wheel hums beneath her, the front passenger side tire

pulls to the side and she can hear the stars

like radio static from some other country.

There are beans in the fridge that need to be eaten.

Hamburger meat about to go bad.

And she's thinking about a dream she had

the night before, in which her eldest, Ashley,

who'd been stepping out with some boy

she barely knew, confessed that she was pregnant.

The dream bothered her,

and even though she knew it wasn't real

she'd always hoped better from Ash.

 

Suddenly, she's home, sitting on the couch,

bathed in radiation from the television.

Then the day will flicker into night,

then tomorrow, the day after, the day after.

   


CL Bledsoe is the author of two poetry collections, Anthem (Cervena Barva Press, 2007), and _____(want/need)(Plan B Press, 2008). He is an editor for Ghoti Magazine http://www.ghotimag.com and lives in Maryland.

 

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