Waxing Phase
Sparrow day
draining to red
red wall of night
night a voice
caught within the throat
the throat a tunnel
a blackened river
a wing bending
a moonrise
Night Coming in Amish Country
The ladder is the barn’s cane
fast against its crossed wrists –
the stitch where roof and wall meet –
and through the field the cricket swirl
a circle of sound
hurricaning into darkness.
Rachel Cloud Adams is the editor for an advocacy association and the founder/editor of the journal and small press Lines + Stars. Her poems have appeared in The North American Review, Big Muddy, Salamander, Blueline, The Conium Review, CAROUSEL, Memoir, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of three chapbooks: What is Heard (Red Bird Press, 2013), Sleeper (Flutter Press, 2015), and Space and Road (Semiperfect Press, 2019). She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and received her MA in writing from the Johns Hopkins University.
