Mark Blaeuer

Eclogue, with Sofa

“The odour of the burning couch is carried across
the meadows from the lately-ploughed stubble . . . ”
—Richard Jefferies, Hodge and his Masters

The furniture’s in milo, smoldering.
Twelve years go by. Astride lunch counter stools,
he-men taunt the field’s owner: “Is that thing
still burnin’, Bobby Joe?” They grin like ghouls.

“I reckon so.” An east coast curator,
in town for an azalea festival
with his wife, overhears and dares to utter:
“Let me buy it.” Guffaws, inscrutable.

Then Bobby Joe speaks up: “I reckon you
did,” causing a young hiree to drop
her plate of ham and navy beans. A few
eyes look at the wife, who says: “Bobby, stop.”

Companion Piece — Extended Bio

Mark Blaeuer’s poems have appeared in dozens of magazines since 1977. He has been employed as library shelver, fast food flipper, “inserter operator” at a junkmail factory, “casual clerk” at a post office, museum aide, archeologist, researcher in a physical anthropology lab, and park ranger. His current job is in the Zigzag Mountains.

He grew up near the American Bottom, where the International Horseradish Festival now occurs every June. He visited the Richard Jefferies house near Swindon, Wiltshire, in 1995 but was disappointed to find it closed. For consolation Mark spent some time at a local pub and (with his wife, a curator) walked around Coate Water, pondering Bevis.