Bart Edelman




Don’t know anything more
Than what they tell me.
Makes it easier that way.
Tried thinking for a spell.
Led me down a rabbit hole.
Confused me even further.

Asked the priest for advice.
Told me he recently decided
To get out of the business.
Open up a sweatshop,
In the garment district—
So much for religion.

Refuse to buy a newspaper.
Far too expensive these days,
And too many words to read.
Besides, they’ve axed the cartoons;
Nothing funny about that.

Ten years left before I’m done
Putting in my time at work.
Retire from the tire trade,
Once and for all, I suppose.
Tired of the daily tread.

Wife says we’ll take a vacation
When I finally call it quits.
Sounds like a swell idea, I guess—
If we only had a place to go.




Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack, Under Damaris’ Dress, The Alphabet of Love, The Gentle Man, The Last Mojito, The Geographer’s Wife, Whistling to Trick the Wind, and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023. He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.