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  • On the Worst Days of the Fever
  • Catherine Pierce (bio)

It occurred to me that I had swallowedsome shards of mirror without realizing it.There was an ice fog that descendedand left me shaking. I began to realize thatI’d never actually held an entire conversation.It was impossible. I had misremembered.Bed held no solace. The night stretchedfor acres and acres, but each hour wasits own thorny wood. I saw every numberon the clock. I sweated through one shirt, thenanother. The bedroom asked Why are you here?I thought you loved me, I said. I loved the other girl,it replied. I turned on the tv at 3 a.m.,watched a special on Hamlet. Yorick’s skullwas human, bequeathed by a dead composer.It made it so much more real, one actor said.My throat shrieked like a teakettle. Thengray morning came. The bed didn’t want mebut neither did the day. I wantedto drink water without swallowing needles.I wanted to stand without swaying.The dried apricots glowed from the pantry.Everything I’d never have again. Everythingthat would sting forever. The sharp whitecheddar, the grapefruit juice. Galaxies beyondmy reach, the world was lit and spinninglike a carnival ride. Cars sped to Mexico.Fireworks arced and shimmered.Millions of people went surfing, dodgedbullets, sang arias, slept together. I watched itthrough my kitchen window as my tearattled on the stove. Impossible that I’d beenpart of it once. A squirrel plummeted [End Page 145] from a tree, shook its head, raced back up.And I saw, suddenly, that the whole damn thingwas too beautiful for any of us, after all,that it couldn’t possibly exist, and you’d thinkI’d find peace in knowing I wasn’t missinganything real, but I only wanted it more.In my fever I flung open the door.In my fever I stood in the yard and reached,tried to gather up into my burning handsthe whole absurd illusion, the light and motes,the fake bird cries, the lab-made pine air,tried to hold tight against me everythingthat had never been there at all. [End Page 146]

Catherine Pierce

Catherine Pierce is the author of The Girls of Peculiar (Saturnalia, 2012) and Famous Last Words (2008). Her poems have appeared in the Best American Poetry, Slate, Boston Review, Ploughshares, Field, and elsewhere. She lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where she co-directs the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.

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