Poetry by Rachel Small

            ​Takashi Toyooka CC



​Ecosystems 

The farmland sits in a separate realm away. We keep
to ourselves, puncturing maple trees at the end of winter
to bring a slow bleed of life. Watching for wind to pass 
over birch trees like a sign of hope, of seasons shifting. It 
is a gift, though, to have a thousand words to describe 
wintertime. Of the snow that cuts off the dirt lane from
the outer world, or the frost blinding the glass windows of 
the house. The richness of land rolling south and north is 
without fault, revealing pockets of places, like a second 
world beneath a fallen tree. A thousand growing things
exist beneath rot, and we marvel at it, listening
to each heartbeat of sap falling in metal buckets. The 
world within a world is untouched, and we stand yet
on the brink of a third world, of a season unraveling. 





The poets always end up on the subject of the moon

The poets cry about the moon / and the crone, the maiden / and also 
the mother / and ends up comparing it to the drought of the body / 
or the second body walking out the door / and after the applause the 
moon begins a new phase / waxing and waning / splitting into a 
leering smile to pull out / like stage tricks / a representation of 
girlhood heartbreak / red solo cups / or cigarette smoke uncurling 
in the night / the poets later ask / tell me you’re a poet without saying 
you’re a poet / asking for a confession of love for the moon / trusting
that no matter the darkness / the moon will somehow return / and 
that is how poets begin anew / starting with it / ending up all the same / 
waiting for the next phase. 

​

Rachel Small is based outside of Ottawa, and is exactly one half of Splintered Disorder Press. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in magazines including Thorn Literary Magazine, blood orange, The Hellebore, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Shore, bywords, and other places. She was the recipient of honourable mention for the John Newlove Poetry Award for her poem “garbage moon and feminist day”. You can find her on twitter @rahel_taller. 

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