Contractions
I can hold my breath only
a few seconds before
I have to release the dragon
in my chest. It is,
like this lease I have on life,
a contract that expires
all too fast. Breathe in,
and my lungs expand. Out,
and the contract expires.
Sucked under, I imbibe water.
In the delivery room,
my lungs are waterlogged.
On the page, I close
the distance between one
word and another.
I marry them in my mouth.
Ruins
Ruins my day when the mirror
notices a clavicle
leaping out of my shoulder.
I was trying to rotate my wrist:
one of the exercises
Lili berates me all morning
for giving up on.
I like how a skeleton appears
always to be smiling.
I force the sad sack of my face
into a smile and aim it
at my wife. Lili believes I developed my limp
deliberately, a comedy
routine designed to spite her.
She has to believe that. The mirror asks
what’s the matter
and I know I’m just lucky
to be alive. I tell myself I’m lucky.
–
Cameron Morse is the senior reviews editor at Harbor Review and the author of eight collections of poetry. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is The Thing Is (Briar Creek Press, 2021). He holds an M.F.A. from the University of Kansas City—Missouri and lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife Lili and three children.