The Whenwolf
by Catherine Pierce
The whenwolf is worried about
its dentist appointment. Its flu shot.
Its colonoscopy. It knows the cat
will die. It knows about the glaciers.
The whenwolf knows the sun
will expand and disintegrate the earth.
It also knows it will be long dead
by then, and isn’t sure which bit
of knowledge is worse. The whenwolf
spends a lot of time reading
about extinction events. It knows
the gloomy tube-nosed bat was last seen
in 1962, but refuses to give up hope.
It wonders if its eyes are failing.
It wonders if its cough should be
checked out. It wonders if the thinning
backyard canopy is due to winter or
emerald ash borers. At night,
the whenwolf falls asleep thinking not yet,
please, not yet. It dreams its heart
as a small hourglass, blue sand falling
through the elegant neck until
the upper globe is almost, almost empty,
and then turning, just barely
in time, and starting again.
This poem is part of my forthcoming collection DEAR BEAST (Saturnalia 2026), which includes a series of poems about a family of mythical wolves (I imagine they occasionally see their cousin, the classic werewolf, at family reunions). All of the wolves (the whywolf, the howwolf, the wherewolf) are concerned about many things, but I feel a special tenderness for (and kinship with) the whenwolf.
Catherine Pierce is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi and the author of four books of poems, most recently Danger Days. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize anthology, The Nation, The American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Academy of American Poets, Pierce teaches at Mississippi State University.
