~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Jo Angela Edwins

The Opossums

come to my porch each night

seeking kibble left behind

by the neighborhood strays

and, absent that, the roaches

fat and dazed on crumbs

inside the empty bowls. I hear

the metal clang of tin

and know the bugs are scurrying

or dying, and I’m glad

for the opossums, whom I imagine

my allies in pest control,

these ungainly marsupials

themselves often labeled pests

by the ignorant, or those too quick

to judge by capricious

mammalian standards of beauty.

Of course the opossums

don’t give a damn about us

and our notions, don’t count

me an ally in anything

more than owning a spot

convenient for an evening meal.

That’s good enough for me.

About all of this the roaches might

think differently, if they could think,

though as for that, opossums

aren’t known to be great thinkers.

Nor are humans, sometimes.

Still, how easy it is for humans

to carry with them their own

congratulations in their pockets

like faded photos of grown children

they can whip out whenever

they wish to feel proud.

What a waste of space, the opossums

would say, understanding

as they do the usefulness

of pockets, places made

not for glossy glories

of the past, but for the small,

pink promises of a future

real and in the flesh,

growing too quickly

inside them, atop them,

clinging like any of us do,

starved for protection,

always hungry for more food.

Jo Angela Edwins has published poems in over 100 journals and anthologies. Her chapbook Play was published in 2016, and her collection A Dangerous Heaven was published by Gnashing Teeth Publishing in 2023. She has received awards from Winning Writers, Poetry Super Highway, and the SC Academy of Authors and is a Pushcart Prize, Forward Prize, and Bettering American Poetry nominee. A resident of Florence, SC, she is the poet laureate of the Pee Dee region of the state.