Poem for Rebecca Wight
Inside a valley
arranged in tableau—once,
my hidden year,
no one noticed we lay down
in grass & leaves
where later I buried
my letter, where I wrote
how it was.
Do you remember
the coil of a literal phone line,
print of a body’s missing
breath. It’s hard to write
the ancient years
when you are midlife
as a creek running
hills of hardwoods.
A hollow
of her face
off the forested
page & all the books
we read to find ourselves
unseen. Who drew you
a thousand grieving seeds.
Copyright © 2021 by Rachel Moritz. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 10, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
“This poem comes out of some writing I did last year about coming of age in the late 80s/early 90s. When I was teenager, I read about the murder of Rebecca Wight while she was camping with her girlfriend Claudia Brenner a few hours away from the town where I lived. I’ve thought about this story many times since, especially in connection to my first (hidden) relationship in high school. What did exposure mean then as a queer kid? What residue of fear is always with me? Theirs was an important and courageous story.”
—Rachel Moritz
Rachel Moritz
Rachel Moritz is the author of the poetry books Sweet Velocity (Lost Roads Press, 2017) and Borrowed Wave (Kore Press, 2015).