“Leaving Wisconsin” is one of five wry yet poignant  poems by CL Bledsoe in our Summer 2015 issue, which you can order online via Amazon and Createspace. Copies are also available at fine independent brick-and-mortar stores like Bluestockings and St. Mark’s Bookshop.

{ X }

THERE’S A HOLE IN MY SOUL THAT
can only be filled by corn
syrup and processed sugars;

the sticky things comfort me.
Preservatives keep feelings
from festering while sitting

on some cobwebbed shelf. I don’t
know when the hotpockets will
reach bottom but I’ve got to

keep pouring them down until
they do. Otherwise, how will
I ever climb out? You don’t

understand; if I lost weight,
people would just want to screw
me. And then, where would I be?

{ X }

CL BLEDSOE is the author of a dozen books, most recently the poetry collection Riceland and the novel Man of Clay. He lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.