Born in Florida, educated at Columbia University, Ricky Ray's recent work can be found in The American Scholar (blog), Matador Review, Fugue, Lodestone, Sixfold and Chorus: A Literary Mixtape. His awards include the Ron McFarland Poetry Prize and Katexic's Cormac McCarthy prize. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, three cats and a dog; the bed is frequently overcrowded.
In a stretch of amber water some call the swamps of Florida, a man longs for the home he has always lived in, a long-muscled wave tossing between shores, the quarter mile of liquid he knows as if he were the watchman of its vein.