There’s so much I love about this aubade. Everything goes as slowly and tenderly as the morning breaking. Even the birds (birds of prey) mentioned become somewhat muted versions of themselves in the way which Jozie calls back to the way their ancestors were dinosaurs, making the birds so much more gentle by comparison, even with their talons “that curl into flesh like I curl into/ you at night.” And the birds in conversation with the other content of this poem, with the narrator’s relationship with the boy she loves, only make that more powerful, highlighting the duality that the gentleness of love can hurt, but also that what is most ferocious, most cruel, in the face of love, in the morning, waking up in someone’s arms, falls away and we are kind to each other again. There’s a powerfully spiritual way about it. In the first stanza Jozie writes “The rays of Rah/ fall into us like bodies do sleep,” and I can’t think of any better way to describe the way we become slightly holier when we give part of ourselves to someone.
There’s only tiny things I’d consider when revising. The poem itself is small on the page, but broken into three stanzas (first medium-sized, second smallest, last largest) and in my opinion, would feel more humble, fitting with the content of the poem, if the first two were combined to match the size of the last stanza (where a lot of the meat of the poem is). It might also be nice to see that spiritual thread begun with Rah in the first stanza carried through a little more, maybe even contributing to the tension of the sadness of leaving in the morning and the peacefulness of it. But really, this poem is too beautiful.
McKayla Conahan 220 Rosko