KB Ballentine
All the Way Through
ISBN: 9781962405096
$17.00 ($4.63 US Shipping)
KB Ballentine’s latest collection All the Way Through is now available from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. Current books can be found with Blue Light Press, Iris Press, Middle Creek Publishing, and Celtic Cat Publishing. Published in North Dakota Quarterly, Atlanta Review and Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, and others, her work also appears in anthologies including Women Speak (2023) and The Strategic Poet (2021). Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.
An Evening Full of Other Evenings
I forget to be here,
in this moment,
feeling my blood
and heart pump
as I breathe
the warm, heavy
evening.
I want to remember
my skin
as it is right now,
even with wrinkles
and freckles
and scars.
My webbed flesh
reminds me
of my grandmother’s
arms, muscles
beginning to sag
and hurt as I shift,
trying not to get
wedged into one position
then unable to move.
But there’s only one other option.
And I watch a deer
snuffle to the corner
of the yard where I scattered
corn and peaches. Two
nights ago she discovered
the hoard
then bucked and snorted
and gamboled before
springing away.
Later she brought a friend,
and they communed
in silent feast
as the moon bloomed
in the east, and a flight
of swallows raced the dusk.
Tonight she is alone
and wary. I know she is safe
even if she does not.
She finds some kernels
and nibbles sycamore leaves
in-between
before she slips through
the opening at the edge
of the woods and disappears.
in-between
before she slips through
the opening at the edge
of the woods and disappears.
