A Distraction of the Empty Spaces by Rachel Nix | ISSUE TWENTY ONE: Smaller, Yes, ty

A Distraction of the Empty Spaces

Rachel Nix

There is a shadow which falls behind anything lit.
Yours, grace-filled as a guillemot diving for dinner—
attempting flight below the surface of water;

the differences lie in the reception of sustenance,
and the way movement is proven to appease hunger.
You cut through the light with little effort; your body,

a distraction of the empty spaces it does not fill—
but it is in watching the shadow you leave that
I have learned the way you pause long enough

to be touched. The repetition of this hunt
should lose romanticism, and has not. It is
a deliberate thing: how you’ve turned me into prey.

Rachel Nix is an editor for cahoodaloodaling, Hobo Camp Review and Screen Door Review. Her own work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, L'Éphémère Review, Occulum, and Pidgeonholes. She resides in Northwest Alabama, where pine trees outnumber people rather nicely, and can be followed at @rachelnix_poet on Twitter.

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