Our New House

1 Minute Read Time

This black and white photograph shows some sort of apartment complex, with the cloudy sky illuminating the awning and fencing. — Photo by Alex Gudino on Unsplash

She was gullet-hungry & nearly skirted the plastic jaws 
smeared with local peanut butter, but they clamped 
shut as she scraped by, breaking both hind legs. We 
woke to relentless scratching in the kitchen, 3:00 a.m. 
clamor as she dragged her body along the valley 
between stove & sink. We’d chosen quick-kill traps & 
already tossed two dead ones in the woods behind the 
house, their faces flat, tiny eyes bulging. But she didn’t 
die. Instead she curled into a question mark, tried to 
chew her body free, scurried across linoleum desperate 
to escape herself.

Rage Hezekiah

is a poet and educator, who earned her MFA from Emerson College. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, MacDowell, and The Ragdale Foundation, and is the recipient of the Saint Botolph Foundation’s Emerging Artists Award. Her poems have been anthologized, co-translated, and published internationally. Her newest collection, Yearn, is a 2021 Diode Editions Book Contest winner, as well as a Lambda Literary Award finalist, a Vermont Book Award finalist, and an Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry finalist.

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