Hornets keep coming back to this window frame –
hundreds touch, circle away. Try again, hit hard
on the glass set deep in the adobe wall.
Behind them, anviled clouds rise
from the Sangre de Cristo to consume the sky.
Only two patches of distant piñon remain illuminated.
Last night, I overheard pigeons softening together
before nightfall, heard a stream that must have been the wind
because there is no water here.
When the hornets swarm away it is not quite dark.
I can hear crickets stop and start
and the silence in between.
–
Lisa Charnock’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Hopkins Review, The Southern Poetry Review, Ibbetson Street, I-70 Review, Paterson Literary Review, and Grist, among other publications. Her poem “Evergreens” was selected by the CLMP for their February 2023 “A Reading List of Love Poems.” Lisa earned her MFA at the Solstice Creative Writing Program and has studied under Ellen Bass, Mark Doty, and many other wonderful poets.