Thank you at 12:41 in the morning speaks
itself through me I cannot go on living
for me but forever and a day could go on
listening to faint pant of the eight-month-old
frowning in serious sleep on the mattress
between my wife and me: Gigi,
for whom we have softened we have tacitly
disregarded the pediatrician’s prohibition
against co-sleeping so strictly adhered to
with our now temperamental firstborn.
Thank you breathes through me for the first time
in a while when I realize no one in the world
could care less about my worsening limp
than my daughter. She doesn’t see the muscle loss
the bleeding sores from scratching
my withered left arm so long as it is bone there
beside her, providing a bumper for her
bowling ball cranium, deflecting her sleep swerves
from the long drop along my side of the bed.
–
Cameron Morse holds an MFA from the University of Kansas City-Missouri and lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife and three children. He is the author of ten collections of poetry and serves as Senior Reviews Editor at Harbor Review and a reader at Small Harbor Publishing. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award.