Dido
Theo dismantles the bird
bath, tips its scalloped
cement dish into the ambiguous
rock bed of my childhood
when I cried out
for Dido, imaginary love
of my life, Scarlett
Johansson in Lost in
Translation. Some
mornings I am lost, like she was,
in Tokyo before she
became Black Widow.
My son bites the ice out
of dog water
while wind gathers
at the cedar foot
of the fence a long row
of autumn leaves.
Level with me, Augustine,
what was it like to be
a fourth century boy?
Some mornings on this side
of my past life, I altogether
vanish into my stupid
student days at Calvin
when I was in unrequited
love with Calgary.
I missed every chance
I had with Grand Rapids.
Night Mare
Now night is synonym
of mare, her dark
falling hair, her flail.
I brace myself
somewhere in the middle
on a bed rail, I blow
down one breath, suck in
another. Nowhere
in my years was I prepared
for this midnight wail.
She is the sins of the father,
Mother Rage, the every
thing wrong of generations,
the sum total of torture.
I am the shield, the back pat
on a crying baby, story
time with the troubled two
year old, too old for his years.
Afterwards in aftermath
I wonder how wrong I am
to relish this morning,
this quiet interplay of shadow
and light, a shadow play
on Minyon’s white vinyl fence,
her swimming pool’s waggle
dance of reflected light
in the shadow of the eaves.
Snowmelt
Dewy December
morning two days before
Christmas, Moby shivers
oscillating b/n
two frequencies:
here and there, past dog,
future dog. Snow clings
to shadow.
Our memories melt
in the sun.
Follow the two faintly
honking geese
on their wayward journey
and they’ll lead you
home. Say hello
to the shaking dog.
Say goodbye
to the migratory birds.
Dew soaks into the toes
of your tennis shoes.
All of a Sudden
Autumn all of a sudden
catches the house fly locked out of the house.
Hooked on a second-story window
screen that yesterday bared onto endless
summer, the nervous guest fingers
the gridwork while cold rain blotches
the walk below. Autumn all of a sudden sweeps
its mason jar off the butcher block
at breakfast, and I feel thankful for the pair
of tube socks I fetched from the lowest drawer
of my chest, the slippers I slipped
out of the sideboard, plucking splinters
of glass from my foot pads. Evening before,
we beat the rain back by minutes, arrowing
straight into northern darkness.
The old dog slipped out of his collar and dashed
upstairs. I cornered him in the guest
bedroom and he snarled. Later,
the younger one whimpered himself out of the crate,
the cockapoo, nestled below my legs.
Figures
Sunrise hatches
light among the clouds.
Sunrise buries its white
stone of light among the clouds.
I speak in tongues
because literal fact defies description.
You will see it if you want to.
I speak in figures
because the sky has broken out
in clouds and even their reflection
in the charcoal hood
of Mariah’s Hyundai Accent
defies description.
From the moment autumn began,
I have wanted nothing
but to describe correctly the cold,
the squirrels and the blue jays.
The squirrel poised in branch rustle
above me springs. The gable thumps.
The blue jay alights, fanning
blue diamond wings into the dark
auspices of the red maple
from which Lili carries Theo,
talking excitedly about a garage sale
on 3rd street, a dollhouse for
our unborn daughter.
Cameron Morse is published in numerous magazines. His debut collection won Best Book Award in The Glass Lyre Press contest in 2018
His latest is Baldy (Spartan Press, 2020)
I speak in tongues
because literal fact defies description.
Yes.