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Jo Angela Edwins

__________

Vignette

The girl at the bus stop faces her boyfriend
who stands one foot to the side, his face
turned so he’ll catch first glimpse of the bus
when it rounds the distant corner. She slips her hands
in the pockets of his jacket, the sharp winds
this morning the coldest of the season. She gazes
intently, intent as the blue October skies
above them, at his profile. The air bends
around their bodies, and purple dogwood leaves—
touched with the blight of anticipated frosts—
spill around their feet like shattered glass.
The girl’s hands, still hidden, fist and unfist.
The heavy bus turns the corner with a hiss.
The boyfriend watches. Neither of them moves.

__________

Bacon and Eggs

rest in a halo of grease
on the glazed white plate, and the light
from the diner window glistens across
and away, as if the plate were flint
and the sun were a striking stone,
or as if it were water and the sun
were a flat, round pebble, and
the mug steams, and the air smells of house-
roast and cologne, and conversations buzz,
and in a corner a radio whines
Baby oh baby oh baby oh oh….
Not much is right with the burning world,
but it is morning now, and a smiling server
comes to freshen my half-empty cup.

__________

Missing: 23-Year-Old Woman

In the photograph,
her smile is wide.
Her hair, pulled back,
escapes in wild strands,
refuses to cooperate.
Hands on her hips,
she pretends exasperation
for the camera, which captures,
behind her, pine panels
on the wall, and to one side
a curio cabinet—
her mother’s? Her grandmother’s?
Inside it, white tea cups,
a crystal vase,
an angel figurine
on her knees, hands folded
as she begs to be noticed,
asks anyone who looks at her
to set her free.

__________

Jo Angela Edwins has published poems in over 100 journals and anthologies. She is author of the collection A Dangerous Heaven (2023) and the chapbooks Play (2016) and Bitten (2025). She has received awards from Winning Writers, Poetry Super Highway, the Jasper Project, and the SC Academy of Authors. She teaches at Francis Marion University in Florence, SC, and is the poet laureate of the Pee Dee region of South Carolina.

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