love – Rachel Nix

Prayer

Posted on January 5, 2017September 28, 2017 by Rachel Nix

for Rachel Woodard

Grey as the in-between of everything
never meant to be understood—
your eyes had a way
of taking the weight of the day
from my shoulders;

when they could not, I found in them
such forgiveness for my defeat.

Heartfully, I always listened
when your wisdom asked for my attention—

our words, sparse enough,
were generally traded
with playful mischief.

Grandmother,

in the years since I saw your face last,
photographs have come to feel
something like prayers.

I miss, most of all,
the way your smile sounded.

Previously published at Black Elephant – Issue 3 / September 2016

The Language We Bury Them In

Posted on October 25, 2016 by Rachel Nix

for Hannah Hamilton

You wrote of comfort, crawfish boils and Port Vincent – for your father
and the South and all of the things I’ve ever loved or never knew about.

I read more and I learned you: your voice, flat on a paper, but heaving
from aches, jerking from anticipation, and then rising with syllables

slapped together to represent something more full. When I found a way
to trade words with you over coffee and curry in South Mississippi,

a middle-ground place where neither of us held reputations more than
what we’d imagined, I knew you were more than a poet, more than

a culture-fed woman on her way; wild-eyed, you described yourself
a sleepy sheepdog and I’ve yet to understand why. In our first meeting,

instinctually, I suppose, we became locked in a stare-down, allowing
ourselves to learn each other’s breed: similar in the way we claw at truths

and how reliant we are on the packs we run in. Sitting with you that day,
across from your Iranian eyes and pure Louisiana rhetoric, I swear

I eyed your words while you spoke them, realizing they held breaths
of their own: graceful with grievances and with an air of atonement.

I can see now why you write them on your skin. Words deserve more
than the language we bury them in; they’ve earned the right to live.

But Hannah, no one wears declarations the way you do. Yours reach
across the table, grab my hands, and place in my palms maps to live by.

Previously published in Paper Swans’ Chronicles of Eve anthology / Spring 2016

activism, poetry, published, Uncategorized

I’d Be Lying

Posted on June 20, 2016February 17, 2017 by Rachel Nix

if I said I wasn’t nervous. My sister, concerned:

I’m afraid Christians may hurt my son.
I’ve been up all night trying to decide if we should go.

When I say Christian, I don’t mean Christian; I mean
those who say amen when it isn’t right.

Is it more important to be seen, to show ourselves in the light –
where darkness protrudes to swallow good? Should we cower,
allow those who holler hatred to mark us apathetic?

All this worry, all this fear, all to decide: is it safe to hold a candle
in the park to mourn people we know in a way only our empathy allows?

 The argument: was it a Muslim or should we blame the gun?
I know that people are afraid – not so much of what they do not understand,
but that which they cannot control.

There are no Muslims in my town – little diversity at all.

I do not fear those who do not exist here. I fear those who do,
those who outnumber me and those who lean on falsehoods;
I fear their guns and their tempers,
their blind hatred and their snap reactions.

I know those who are victim to a misshapen faith do not understand
love as it is: without preconceptions.

I know those who fight for this generation’s musket do not know
they are the ammunition for the weapon they believe protects them,
the weapon used to kill their neighbors.

They do not know that with every belly-ache argument
to hold on to these guns they pull a trigger; someone dies.
They do not know intolerance is genocide.

They shout: sinner, abomination—
not knowing the heaviness of words, of slurs.They define: bleeding-heart liberal;
not knowing the truth of it.

They do not know this fear:
watching folks bleed to be remembered as human.This is:

a baseball game / a grocery store / a first date / a dog park / America / a marriage
ceremony / lunch with friends / an argument at work / the internet / a public restroom /
church / business as usual / a quick walk down the block / prom / Orlando / home /
where you want to be / a bar / a safe place / Pride Month / a dance floor / war / a funeral /

a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral /
a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral /
a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral /
a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral /
a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral /
a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral / a funeral.