We drove toward a night-black sky my husband and I, crossing the desert with mesquite, tumbleweed and sage, tawny grasses bent to the ground. Then sudden snowflakes splattering the windshield, falling fat and wet dripping in icy trickles. It was just us and an occasional truck hauling nameless cargo across the high plain, caught in a desert squall. When we reached Las Cruces we traded lightning flashing on the horizon for the sound of rain falling on the roof of a roadside motel.
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Emily Axelrod’s poems draw upon her childhood in San Francisco, an abiding connection to the landscape of Northern California, and summers spent on a small island in Maine. “By Chance” is Axelrod’s third book of poetry, following “Passerby” (Antrim Books, 2015) and “North Window” (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her poems have been published in "The Muddy River Review," "The Galway Review," "the Cafe Review, "On the Seawall," and elsewhere. She has a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and is the former Director of the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence, a national award for urban placemaking. She lives and works in Cambridge, MA.
Lightwood 