How Many Times

Jack Bedell

can you pull
a crab trap to the surface

by string tied off to the dock

before you stop expecting it
to come up full,

crawling with blue
claws, paddle legs,

more meal than any man
needs, more

weight than the trap’s wire
can bear,

just more:

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. His latest collections are Elliptic (Yellow Flag Press, 2016), Revenant (Blue Horse Press, 2016), and Bone-Hollow, True: New & Selected Poems (Texas Review Press, 2013). He was recently appointed by Governor John Bel Edwards to serve as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.