Jo Angela Edwins
We Put the Chickens Away Last Night and Couldn’t Find Grace
first sentence of a social media post
and we led the cows to the barn and lost all hope,
and while latching the horse stalls we looked for love,
but it was nowhere to be found, even in the pen
where the pigs grunted sleepily no matter the absence of peace,
and the geese in their usual corners settled down to rest,
certain none of us would find contentment,
and the donkey, who hoarded humility, suggested
we were fools to search for joy, until at last we left
the farmyard, humans weary and trudging slowly until
we stumbled on mercy, which leapt gladly into our hands.
Jo Angela Edwins is the poet laureate of the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. She is the author of the collection A Dangerous Heaven (2023) and the chapbooks Play (2016) and Bitten (forthcoming 2025). She lives in Florence, SC, where she teaches literature and writing at Francis Marion University.