by Isaiah Rubio

“RESIDUAL I” by Samantha Atzbach
With this handgun
I pull
the trigger
to
de stroy
my third eye. The muse
says nothing,
closes
her
vision,
and
leaves me
in silence. I burn
my pile of wood
on the first day
of winter. I hide in churches
to save
time
for the retribution. I think
I want this.
Isaiah Rubio is studying poetry in the MFA program at Brigham Young University.
(Art) Sam Atzbach (b. 1998) is currently living and working in Provo, Utah. Her foci are painting,
textile, and sculpture. Her work examines the relationship between predecessor and successor, the
weight of being, and the immutable collective unconscious that exists within the sentient and
insentient, irrespective of time and space. She seeks to reconcile the constant pull from the past and
push of the future to find space in the present in-between through an assemblage of apparition-like
figures, guttural marks, found stones, and organic forms, both human and non-human.