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.