Winter Comes

And we’re proud of ourselves
for eating soup in season. Lentils and split pea,
like our grandmothers, who always kept
their clothes from splitting in time.

When bad things happen, it’s important
to remind ourselves that we’re real, even
when we don’t want to be. The same is true
of love and pumpkin pie, which no one likes

enough to eat more than once a year. Every day,
I could be happy waking to the soft susurrus
of your breath. The flash of your eyes. Only
a dying flame is brighter. I could make you

barley vegetable soup to remind you
it’s not just that we’re dying; it’s
those winter mornings. The fire warming our feet.
The crows calling somewhere outside.

CL Bledsoe

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than thirty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, The Bottle Episode, and his newest, Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

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