Skip to Content

On Reverence

By Cass Garison

I adore the carnations & I adore
the trains, specifically the boxcars
with endings & beginnings I can’t

keep track of, who drag their stretched
torsos like absolute creatures around
what seems like earth’s clearest curve.

I adore the harshness of the wind, the bite
of the metal railing on my hand as the two
almost freeze together. I adore the rose

that casts a long shadow & the other roses
whose silhouettes become obstructed
on their way to the ground, lose

all tethering to their former geometries.
Adore the cedars & pines at their most
finicky, the windows that fog

with dew or steam depending
on the occasion, the crow who,
as I have my morning coffee, presses

& presses with its repetitious, piercing caw.
I adore the ritual of Sunday mass, of incense
& kneeling to the point of pain, the point

of splinter, as any true reverence, any true
devotion, I have learned, requires. I adore
the lover I asked to hit me with their thickest

Italian leather belt until I sweltered, then held me
as the bruises bloomed. Adore the stranger
outside the bar who blew smoke into my face,

the bees humming yesterday’s desire, the cloud
of sparrows that tangle away from recognition.
I adore all the animals I’ve ever mercy killed

without knowing fully what I was doing: the vole
whose head contorted almost completely
backward, a single bird on the streets of New York,

a rat snake run into the summer-hot
pavement to the point of irreversible
suture. Adoration, complete adoration

to the daffodils, the hyacinths, the lack
of prayer that this life requires. Adoration,
at last, for the way a paintbrush, even

with its finest bristles, can slice
through any shape I have decided on
prior, but even in its making anew,

even in its revision, the indents
of the old form still noticeable, still
raised & rough to a perceptive hand.

 

 

 

 

Listen as Cass Garison reads On Reverence.
Added: Wednesday, April 2, 2025  /  Used with permission.
Cass Garison
Photo by Corbin Louis

Cass Garison is a poet & artist. They host an annual retreat for artists working & playing across mediums, and founded/co-organize Threshold, a queer- & trans-centered poetic-performance art series in Seattle.

Their first chapbook, Beauty Exasperated, was published by Common Meter Press in 2024. They have an MFA from University of Washington, Seattle, and were a 2023-2024 Hugo House Fellow. Learn more at their website. 

Image Description: Cass Garison smiles and standsslightly turned toward the viewer They hold a clear cup in their left hand and rest their right hand on a metal bar which holds a hanging potted plant. Cass wears a black baseball-style hat, a white t-shirt with a brown jacket, and grey jeans. In the background there is a concrete wall and a large window. 

Other poems by this author

Back to top