Rage Hezekiah

Evidence

Down a wooded path
in dark, we board
glass-bottom canoes,

moon pregnant &
milkless. Step into
the boat, unsteady

in the shallows, listen
to night’s canopy—
a hum of creatures

we can’t see. Afloat,
we trail slim fingers
behind our bodies,

carve cerulean stripes
into the water, a fleet
of fireflies beneath

where we sit, buoyant
& boundless. Science
says bioluminescence,

except I know of God
and how she planted
kinesthetic stars

within the bay, bright
sparks flowering.

Rage Hezekiah is a Cave Canem and MacDowell Fellow who earned her MFA from Emerson College. She is a recipient of the Saint Botolph Emerging Artist Award in Literature and was nominated for Best New Poets, 2017. Her recent chapbook, Unslakable, is a 2018 Vella Chapbook Award Winner with Paper Nautilus Press. Stray Harbor, her debut full-length collection of poems, is forthcoming with Finishing Line Press. Rage’s poems have appeared in The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-day, Rattle, Salamander, and several other journals and anthologies. You can find more of her work at ragehezekiah.com.