Catherine Pierce is the author of The Tornado Is the World (forthcoming from Saturnalia Books in 2016), The Girls of Peculiar (Saturnalia 2012), and Famous Last Words (Saturnalia 2008). Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry (2015 and 2011), Slate, Boston Review, Ploughshares, FIELD, and elsewhere. She co-directs the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.
Spring 2016
From The Compendium of Romantic Words: Whip-Smart; From The Compendium of Romantic Words: Howl
Verb; noun. Notable for its compact muscularity, as a wolf’s haunches double up to spring and then the red carnage.
Winter 2012
The Mother Warns the Tornado; On the Origins of the Tornado
The Mother Warns the Tornado
Scene: a bathtub, dry. The noise outside inaudible
behind the baby’s wails.
I know I’ve already had more than I deserve.
These lungs that rise and fall without effort,
the husband who sets free house lizards,
this red-doored ranch, my mother on the phone,
the fact that I can eat anything—gouda, popcorn,
massaman curry—without worry.