Watched by crows and friend to salamanders, Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a writer living in the mountains of North Carolina. She has two books, Appalachian Ground (2019) and Wolf Laundry (2020) out, and new poems in American Writers Review, The Main Street Rag, and Jam & Sand, among others.

T.o.C.

Owls

1. 
There are two of them tonight
sounding rounds
copse by copse
ridge top, big rock, pine stand

    here is my grove, my grove
        this too?
    this too

between, the fog
clumps and 
attenuates

coyotes listen
with sly unconcern
as the owls swing
the shadowy chains of their voices
circle by circle
in the gloom

2.
You are unrivaled in your unlit chapel
solitary, each of you
your waiting measured
snowfall by snowfall

you cannot hear
the kettle sing

anymore, and
the orange windows 
barely reflect your face

I do not know how your secret
wound will be healed

but until then
you take turns 

not answering

 
Charged

Bees carry a positive electrical charge;
flowers, a negative one

After a bee visits,
the flower's charge changes
to positive

I think this is a love poem

​

Lisa Creech Bledsoe