By CL Bledsoe

My father is cocaine lingering on 
a blonde mustache. My father is work
pants and a Walmart button-up shirt. 
My father talks so much shit he lives
in a toilet. My father has drinking 
buddies instead of friends. He hates
them all the same as they hate him. 
My father eats undercooked chicken,
squirrel with eyes still in, recalled 
Vienna sausages, rainbow kitten flavor. 
When my father talks, no one listens. 
He walks tall and carries a big stick,
which he’s never used to play hockey.
My father shuts it all down when 
he doesn’t understand. He’s got work
to do in the morning, so keep quiet. 

~~~

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe’s poetry collections include Riceland, and his newest, Banana for Scale, as well as his latest novel The Moon On My Back. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his kid.