Three Poems for Martina by Lisa Creech Bledsoe

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.