Still Frames at Friendship Hollow
Did the bobcat descend from leafy ridge,
kits stowed in tree hollow
or under muddled brush? She lopes
past the trail-cam, ears white,
cocked. Is she stalking prey—
mice for babes, for her a sleeping
rabbit, squirrel in tree-fork’s drey?
She seems not to notice the pair
of eyes flicker, electric, hunkered
beneath the cabin’s warped deck.
Whatever it might be—raccoon
or opossum—it’s large, wedged in
tight. Shrouded by thicket, folded
into long grass, a doe suckles
mottled fawns. Phoebes take
shifts, rest in a mossy nest
tucked into rafters, smooth white
eggs speckled brown. The heavy
opossum slinks from cranny,
angles for trunk, clambers up.
This valley’s life whirrs, unfurls
to the rhythm of trees, bud to leaf meal.
A raccoon clings to shadowed branch,
silent bobcat rounds the night.
Annette Sisson’s poems appear in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Rust & Moth, Citron Review, Cumberland River Review, and many other journals. Her second book, Winter Sharp with Apples, was published by Terrapin Books 10/1/24. Her first book, Small Fish in High Branches, was published by Glass Lyre Press (5/22). She has won or placed in many contests, and in the past five years, nine of her poems have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.