I
One summer, my father
took me to a movie at the theater.
He had never done this before.
When the movie was over,
we snuck down the hall
and watched another.
I was fourteen years old.
I don't remember
the name of either movie.
II
My boyfriend and I were
living together and his father
had cut him off when
he nervously slid a small
engagement ring across the roof
of his car to where I was
standing on the other side,
having just gotten out.
We were in the parking lot
of a seafood restaurant.
I have never, ever wondered
what would have happened
if I had said, Not good enough.
III
It was March and sunny enough
in Memphis. I was four
years old and my parents
had just returned with
a baby sister.
I stood in the back yard
and stared unhappily
at the swings where
for three warm days
my great-grandmother had
played endlessly
with only me.
Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a hiker, beekeeper, and writer living in the mountains of North Carolina. She is the author of two books of poetry, Appalachian Ground (2019), and Wolf Laundry (2020). She has poems in Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Chiron Review, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and Quartet.