Today's poem is by Catherine Pierce

Abecedarian for the Power Outage
       

Absolute, the sudden silence—the fan stops
buzzing, the refrigerator hushes. No,
child, the night-light can't turn on. The nervous
dog curls herself like a comma against any soft thing.
Everything non-house—crickets, wind rustle,
full white moon—is amplified. Everything else: vanished.
Goodbye, breaking and broken news; farewell, accomplishing. Dear
husband, shall we fool around? Dear moon, you reckless marvel.
In this floating black sphere, there are no edges,
just transformations. The microwave looks
kindly in the candle's amber
light. The curtains are full of possibilities.
Miraculous, this gift: how
nothing can reach you here. Not what you haven't done, not tomorrow's
OB-GYN appointment, not all the wildfires and floods and hurricanes
piling up like megaphoned
questions you can't answer. The night
roils around you, only it's not the night, it's
something bigger, something that holds you, something
that tells you, gently but firmly, this can't last,
under no circumstances will this last.
Vellum moon, solicitous microwave—nothing
will stay. You've drawn
Xs through your obligations,
you're pleading for more time, but the power blares back,
zealous in its quest to return what you dropped. Here: Every stone. Every needle.

Tweet
Copyright © 2024 Catherine Pierce All rights reserved
from The Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission