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Cody Shrum

Nowhere Sunday

The wind flicks our boat around the lake

like smoothed pucks on a shuffleboard.

Dad puts me in charge of navigation.

Which means I dick with the trolling motor

and cuss openly every so often.

 

Grandpa’s line breaks. Breaks again.

Each time, my little brother must pause

his fishing, use his young vision to see

the line through each narrowing eye

and tie Grampa’s jig with Palomar knots.

 

Back home, I’m busy, behind, essays

stacked, flower beds weed-infested.

The front steps of my house

crumble, concrete disintegrating

like Styrofoam in gasoline.

 

But out here, grandpa snores. Dad reels

in the biggest fish of the day. Sun

warms skin, tobacco buzzes lips. Dalton

and I recite movie quotes, annoy Dad,

like we’re back in elementary school,

 

and that’s all we ever had.

Author Photo, Bear Review - Cody Shrum.jpg

 

 

Cody Shrum is a writer and editor based in Kansas City. He holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cody’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in such journals as BULL, Cleaver Magazine, Identity Theory, Harbor Review, Rust + Moth, and the Midwest Quarterly, as well as the anthology, Kansas Time + Place: An Anthology of Heartland Poetry.

Bear Review

11.1

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