CL Bledsoe2

OHIO

Ohio understands the genius my youth

once felt, the soft smell of corn in my hair. We ran

along gravel roads, looking for tomorrow’s sweet

smile. There were no mountains, but there were girls,

sometimes in pairs, in rivers, in backseats, in basements.

Death was a horizon we hadn’t reached, so we tested

poisons on our bodies to understand the smell. All our pets

were run over by our uncles, and we learned not to cry

in front of Mamaw. Now, we use the steady flow of rivers

to guide our days, the rusted heaps of our fathers’ wrecked

first cars to stand for the wisdom of age. We aren’t looking

for tomorrow, only an eternal today. We eat too much

because we know what it is to starve. Fear

tastes like everything.