Adrie Rose
Aubade
God comes as we are walking
in a strange neighborhood morning,
before the funeral, God
downshifts the thrumming trash truck
beside us as the men heave up
the barrels. We pass a pho place
where God is the star anise in the broth
but my brother says everyone else
wants Red Lobster. Before
we go back, where dad
is sleeping after waking at 4
am to start drinking again, before
the baby deer startles across
the path, we talk about how
to get him to rehab,
how he can barely walk—God is
there too, clotted in the goldenrod.
Adrie Rose eats pie, rolls around in the violets, and organizes for climate and racial justice in occupied Nonotuck and Pocumtuck territory. Her work has previously appeared in Witness, Rise Up Review, The Rail, Rebelle Society, Plum, Peregrine, The Giving Room Review, and Poetry Breakfast. Her poem “The Anthropocene” was nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize. Her poem “In the Liminal” was awarded second place in the Robert P. Colleen Poetry Competition. She has work forthcoming in Dark Matter: Women Witnessing. Find her on Instagram @gladheartherbals and Twitter @AdrieLovesPie.