Marcy Rae Henry

(Sonnet of sorts)

 

Horrible. I found a praying mantis in the bathroom. The insect that reminds me

of a particular ex who reminded me of the saddest violin.  Before choking clouds,

before rain fell in sloppy splots, I tried my best to catch the mantis with a plastic bag. 

Some things you want to release.  Right after a dog walk the rain began. So humid I couldn’t

eat. Some days it is enough to feed the dog, to unchoke. The mantis was missing one long

worshipful arm.  What is a one-handed prayer? An uneven rain. What even is I love you but

only in motion. The mantis motioned to me to stop chasing him. I told him, I won’t hurt you,

I will put you outside where it is bigger, greener.  He wanted to know why I thought I knew

where he belonged. Why I couldn’t just recognize he was a sign of wisdom and luck, patience

and perseverance and let him be. Why I had to stop and research: do praying mantises bite

when I know very well everything bites. A flood warning flashed on my phone: Most flood

deaths occur in vehicles. Turn around, don’t drown when encountering flooded roads.

Glad I didn’t put the stick green insect outside; I still try to trap him in a poem

but really I think about him all night long and dry as kindling. 

Marcy Rae Henry is a multidisciplinary Xicana artist from the Borderlands who’s had motorcycle crashes in Mexican-America, Turkey and Nepal. She is the author of death is a mariachi, winner of the May Sarton NH Poetry Prize and CHIRBy finalist, when to go to the Taj Mahal, the body is where it all begins, dream life of night owls, winner of the Open Country Chapbook Contest, and We Are Primary Colors. Her writing has received a Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, four Pushcart nominations, first prize in Suburbia’s Novel Excerpt Contest and Kaveh Akbar chose this collection as a finalist for the George Garrett Fiction Prize. MRae’s visual work appears in Waxwing, Arkana, The William & Mary Review, Thimble Magazine, and was featured in the 2022 Assisi, Italy International Contemporary Art Exhibition. She is a digital minimalist with no social media accounts, a senior editor for RHINO, and Professor of English, literature and creative writing.