Rachel E. Hicks

Rachel E. Hicks’s poetry has appeared in The Baltimore Review, Ekstasis, Vita Poetica, Relief, St. Katherine Review, Gulf Stream, and other journals. She is editor of Among Worlds magazine, an associate editor at Del Sol Press, and a freelance copyeditor. A global nomad who has lived in seven countries, she explores themes of displacement, worldview, and human dignity in her writing. Find her online at rachelehicks.com.

an eXCERPT FROM “dRINK it Dry”

She is awake in the lightening dark. The humidity is thicker than yesterday, and she can feel a light line of sweat on her upper lip and forehead. She wonders how to steel herself against the crowd she knows will be watching, imagines remaining in the house until brought out by force—what would that be like? Maybe she should stand in a strategic place instead: between the front door and the apartment wall. Will anyone be moved to pity? Does she want them to pity her?

She is still considering all of this as she pours her tea. Lao Yi’s cup rests beside her on the table this morning—she pours a little tea into it. “Gan bei,” she whispers in a toast—drink it dry.

She hears the beeping of a truck backing up at the same time she becomes aware of murmuring conversation outside. She picks up both tea cups and walks to her door. A foreman is waving the truck closer down her lane. Two other workers in hard hats stand smoking to the side of the house, near the cabbage patch. Already there are ten to fifteen of her new neighbors gathered on the other side of the wall. No one looks her in the eye.

Originally published in The Briar Cliff Review 2019 (Volume 31). Winner of the 2019 Fiction Prize.

Read more of “Drink It Dry” in Solum Journal Fall 2022.