Poetry by KB Ballentine

KB Ballentine, winner of Poetry Society of Tennessee’s 2025 Best of the Fest and Writer’s Digest November 2024 PAD Chapbook Challenge, has nine collections of poetry, the most recent All the Way Through (Shelia-Na-Gig 2024). Her work also appears in numerous anthologies, including: Women Speak: Volume Ten, Writing the Land: Wanderings II, Art of Chestnut Review: Volume One, and The Strategic Poet. Learn more at kbballentine.com.

Suddenly, After Long Silence

Morning comes late to a house in the woods,
plucks away shadows inch by inch.
Even wrens and chickadees wait
for the warmth, the light to reach
the feeders, full with gifts of seeds.
I have waited for you to return, to offer
your warmth, the light of your eyes
thrilling my belly, my chest. But my brain
knows better, knows there’s nothing
you want to give that will stay the darkness –
that will keep the shadows from stretching
across the threshold and into my heart.