Aubade: The Morning Beast

Maybe she’s the dew-crystalled web 

and the great furred spider inside it. 

Maybe she’s bus exhaust and sirens. 


You don’t need to know. For certain 

she is not worried about haircuts or lists 

or televised debates. She is not worried 


about certainty. She isn’t here to smooth 

anything over. She isn’t here to judge

or forgive. She has fog. She has seven deer 


and a massive growling garbage truck. 

She does not care about the research 

you’ve done. She does not notice 


your mouth. She herself doesn’t need one. 

She herself doesn’t speak because 

speaking goes one way only, is non-


dimensional, air-colored and leafless. 

She is all leaves. She is all cisterns 

of stone. She towers when she wants to.


Other times she mists-and-murmurs. 

She sees you wanting her to absolve you. 

She sees you making your sunrise resolutions: 


good morning, restraint and improvement! 

She finds you sweet, the way you might 

find a vole or a small ceramic cactus sweet. 


She is a non-translation, a no thank you

She wants for nothing. She’s insatiable. 

Brimless, she’s filled to the brim. 

 


Catherine Pierce

Catherine Pierce is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi and the author of four books of poems, most recently Danger Days (Saturnalia 2020). Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, the New York Times, American Poetry Review, The Nation, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, and elsewhere. An NEA Fellow and two-time Pushcart Prize winner, she co-directs the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.

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Seeking the Ultimate and the Intimate

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Where Our Knowing Resides