Lisa Creech Bledsoe

NOT MADE OF WOOL

"I have loved you woman as surely as I have
named you rust and sand and nylon."
—Charles Bukowski

We let it go. To go over everything
would take a thousand times. Sorry

for running out of precision. This
could be it. I see how durable you are—

nails, rope, toothbrushes. We're running out
of blue-eyed soul, synthetic grit.

We smile at each other while the
floor burns through and bare branches

creep around the white neck of sky.
Rusting there, leaving a stain.

I had hoped we were
at least fire-resistant—

I have lost count. 
I have lost.

Watched by crows and friend to salamanders, Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a hiker, beekeeper, and writer living in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She is the author of two full-length books of poetry, Appalachian Ground (2019), and Wolf Laundry(2020). She has new poems out or forthcoming in American Writers Review, The Main Street Rag, The Public Poetry 2020 Anthology, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and River Heron Review, among others.