Rachel L. Snyder

Where would we be without room to slow down

What is it about three o’clock that makes the sun look like its setting, flattens the light across the horizon so it doesn’t shine.

Every spot of shade is a cloud rolling by, shadows cold across city limits, you can see the edges from an airplane, but the engine drowns the voices calling down.

I keep having dreams in which I cannot sleep, just wander around the house all night, opening cabinets,

follow the roll of the waves to their beginning, the first crash that leads the ocean by a string.

I go outside to hear the moment between ice and water, the crackle following like dog-shadow after one weighted step.

Imagine the rupture if the yellow light went missing. They rely on each other: go so dependent on stop.

Rachel Snyder received her B.A. and M.F.A. in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. When she is not writing, she dabbles in photography and mixed media arts. She spends most of her time outside in New York, listening.

Pic courtesy of kishidachaos