Rachel Crawford

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Equilibrium

In the tall grass by the river,
silence stands on one leg,
preening its white feathers,
keeping one black eye
on the parts of speech swimming by.
In the shallows by the bank,
a sentence coils in green water,
dreaming up ways
to drag feathered things under.

Rachel Crawford is a teacher, writer, and editor from central Texas currently teaching and working on a doctorate in Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her poems and short stories have been published in journals and books including Red Rock Review, Mudlark: An Electronic Journal of Poetry and Poetics, Lucid Rhythms, The Lyric, Figures of Speech, Apeiron Review, Red River Review, The Yellow Chair Review, Illya's Honey, Freshwater Poetry Journal, Adanna Literary Journal, r.cv.r.y., Literary Juice, Anima Poetry Journal, Crack the Spine, Rock & Sling: A Journal of Witness, RiverSedge, and The Wayfarer: A Journal of Contemplative Literature. Her poems "The Limitations of Theory" and "Mater Primigenia" received a Poetry in the Arts Award through Baylor University, and her short story "First Names" received the 2016 short story award from the National Federation of Press Women. She's a contributing co-editor of the anthology Her Texas (Wings Press, 2015), and she is currently co-editing the anthology A Fire to Light Our Tongues.