Deployed.
Everything had to be put away.
His grey fuzzy robe,
the blue cup with his toothbrush. And we are like
a glass of spilled water which cannot be gathered.
The fallen branch hanging,
still halfway off the gutter.
*
The potted lavender needs a home,
the wicker chair is un-wickering
and I consider
living without him.
For five minutes I listen
to an American Robin in my yard
sing its string of continuous chirps.
And that’s its life.
Light, papery,
deeply-veined leaves.
*
Verdi’s Requiem plays scratchy again
inside the house. The fern’s frond singed
by the sun. I weave his shadow in battle.
His return a mock orange refuge
at the end of a narrow bridge.
The beauty of this evergreen
sweetens my body, curves me
into the peen end of a hammer. Elecampane
strong and savory in my mouth. And I’m ready
to pry his long marches
from my mind. Each day we’re separated I strain
through a fine filter. Each time my feet touch
the earth, a wick sizzles in Spain. Rest and rescue.
Rest and rescue. Another genesis.
*
These early hours alone, so pure
and unexpected
like the workings of nature.
In many ways backwards.
For example, rather than a field filled
with a certain flower you’d hope to see
the scene is much more affecting
when only modestly filled
with just a field.
It’s soundless and arcs inside you.
Rachel Rix was chosen for the Arctic Circle Residency 2025. She has published work in The Iowa Review, War Literature & the Arts, Issued, Spillway, Wrath-Bearing Tree, Verdad, Right Hand Pointing, as well as the anthology When There Are Nine. She was shortlisted for the Fish Anthology 2020 poetry contest in Ireland and has work forthcoming in Willow Springs Magazine. Rix earned an MFA from the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe, and works as a CMT in Sacramento – where she lives with her husband, Adam, and their two cats, Floppy and Leo.