November 16, 2025
Ethel Rackin
Ethel Rackin is the author of In Time (Word Works Books, 2025), Evening (Furniture Press, 2017), Go On (Parlor Press, 2016), and The Forever Notes (Parlor Press, 2013). Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Colorado Review, New England Review, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Volt, and elsewhere.
At first, I thought I’d fill the cardinal enameled trinket with something—a lock of hair, an image of my love. But the longer I left it empty the less likely it was I’d find just the right thing.
When my life is quiet enough, I hear poems throughout the day, and even when I’m not hearing them, they’re brewing just under the surface. The brutal realities of daily life work their way into dreams and poems, but it’s there that they become mutable. We have to dream and think our way out.