Poetry Books
Let Her Breathe — Collected Poems
LET HER BREATHE is a bittersweet struggle from childhood to adulthood for a woman coming to terms with life in all its ugliness and beauty. Rachel Rees pulls no punches in her poems and short fiction, told through disparate female voices, including her own.
“Palpable. Yes.” – Penelope Todd, author of Digging for Spain: A Writer’s Journey.
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Short Fiction Books
All I Want for Christmas is Revenge
A Dark Christmas Comedy Novelette
When game developers Sarah and Greg are laid off right before the holidays, their Christmas cheer takes a hit. Reeling from the loss, they learn the venture capitalist responsible is heading to Norway on a family skiing trip, and revenge starts sounding awfully sweet. The duo sets out on a clandestine Nordic quest to deliver some old school justice, but can this worldbuilding pair manufacture a real-world takedown or will their imperfect scheming snowball into an epic failure?
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Sample Poems
Tree Trunks
This is what they call me.
So I giggle—they might ask me
to join in and play
if I pretend not to care.
But, they walk past our letterbox
and up the street, laughing
into the distance—
I watch them go without shouting
a word in my defence,
what would I say anyhow?
Instead, I climb up the thick
body of the kōwhai tree
and sit in the fork of the trunk
where two arms splay outward.
I play there with my dolls
until I’m not pretending anymore.
Before Difference
I want to remember you
and me as children. Before
we were bodies in the moonlight.
I imagine the playground at school:
There’s me—I’m at one end
making daisy chains for friends
and you’re on the swing
over there
with your legs kicked high
And hey!
There’s you at show and tell:
You’re in a pressed and buttoned shirt
playing something beautiful
on a beaten-up piano
a couple of keys are out of tune
and there’s me again
I’m at the back
singing all the words
under my breath.
The Smell of Return
His arms outstretched
His smile
His navy sailcloth bag
pinned against his back
like a shell—
And it rained before
The tarmac smells hot
A remarkable, white heat
shipwrecked on the road—
I stand at the brown gate
beneath the kōwhai tree
one arm shading my face from the sun
as yellow flowers, like bells,
sway before my eyes—
He arrives at the gate
Rests his right hand on my head
I lock my child arms around his waist
and breathe in—
His sweat, like hot tarmac
His whiskey and cigarette breath
His fish, sea and salt-weathered sweater.
Tips of Toes
I once believed
we walked the earth
on equal footing
on equal terms
Now I see
we struggle across sand
on our heels
or the tips of our toes
The Pine Cone
Behold the humble pine cone
More than a female sex organ
She warns you of fire in a dry zone
She sat in the palm of Chicomecoatl
Hid under Celtic pillows ‘til dawn
Behold the humble pine cone
She was ambrosia for relics of a distant time zone
Seed-flesh, scale-bone then carbon
She warns you of fire in a dry zone
A symbol of enlightenment. Wishbone
of the forest floor. Protector of spawn
Behold the humble pine cone
She falls before winter’s groan
Lays bare for you to burn, human
She warns you of fire in a dry zone
In the dark, she lives unknown
In the light, she is turned on
Behold the humble pine cone
Behold the humble pine cone, fire in a dry zone
