Jack B. Bedell

by Jack B. Bedell

after Pina Bausch’s Das Frühlingsopfer

The dancers pull themselves through space,
across a stage covered in loose soil,
primitive, fecund, pagan, virginal, decomposed.
They fight gravity with every muscle
connected to their bones, fling their cells
across all distances. Struggle, contrapuntal
against Stravinski’s strings, always
there to slam them to ground. Sweat,
almost enough to wash away their
grace, more than enough to
draw dirt onto their bare skin. To mar
all innocence and joy. And then
the red dress these women pass
from hand to hand—a burden
of hope none of them want to wear,
a sacrifice each dancer would
chase away with movement, every
leap, every fall, every spin and twist
that much closer to a death they are
bidden to face so spring can bloom
along the horizon line, a death waiting
patiently for last steps to fall.

Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in HAD, Heavy Feather, Pidgeonholes, The Shore, Moist, Psaltery & Lyre, EcoTheo, and other journals. His work has been selected for inclusion in Best Microfiction and Best Spiritual Literature. His latest collection is Ghost Forest (Mercer University Press, 2024). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019. 

by Jack B. Bedell

—after Francesca Woodman’s Eel Series, 1978

is what we can never be:
pure curve. Even in a simple
bowl, it bends itself infinitely, spirals
against itself forever, without
its lines coming to an end,
or to angles that find themselves
trapped in every part of us
no matter how gracefully
we place our bodies on
the floor surrounding it.
 

Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in HAD, Heavy Feather, Pidgeonholes, The Shore, Moist, Okay Donkey, EcoTheo, The Hopper, Terrain, and other journals. He has also had work included in Best Microfiction and Best Spiritual Literature. His latest collection is Against the Woods’ Dark Trunks (Mercer University Press, 2022). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.

by Jack B. Bedell

Things I miss: I’d start with Linda, but she’d need her own list, so I’ll go with breakfast, the unadulterated promise of coffee percolating in the Drip-O-Lator. I miss fresh, clean sheets on my legs. I miss the dog warming my feet. More than anything, I miss the feeling I’m running out of time to get things done. Now, time’s just a blur of moving and waiting and anger and searching. These days, time isn’t something I can lose, no matter how I try. If I waste it, the morning sun brings more, day after day. It just grows back like my hand if it’s ripped off in a fight. I miss optimism, too. You know, the chance that things don’t have to be what they are, that I might not be what I am and where I am, or that all of this might just be a dream.

Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in HAD, Heavy Feather, Pidgeonholes, The Shore, Moist, Okay Donkey, EcoTheo, Barren, Terrain, and other journals. His latest collection is Against the Woods’ Dark Trunks (Mercer University Press, 2022). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.