AUBADE

By: Julie Benesh

The future’s a whale that doesn’t target us,

particularly: drinks its ocean,

filters needed nutrients, expels the rest.

The biggest-eyed kitten’s a trained assassin,

but even she can learn to mother a bird.

We never blame the faster prey

for starving the predator,

and confuse the light of dawn

with the end of days.

What comes for us is nothing

compared to what we do, ourselves, to ourselves,

pulling every trigger.

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Julie Benesh is author of About Time, published by Cathexis Northwest Press. She is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at War-ren Wilson College and was awarded an Illinois Arts Council Grant. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Crab Orchard Review, Florida Review, Another Chicago Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago.