CAMERON MORSE - POEMS

Cameron Morse is 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 MFA from the University of Kansas City—Missouri and lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife Lili and (soon, three) children. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website.    

​Diet

​I eat whatever I want
 
no point in making
him miserable
 
with the time he has left 
 
            *
 
Ed watching his
weight again
no longer on the “see
food diet” turns
down lunch for a QT salad
 
PVC elbowing
his jowls his back
arched above
the cabinet’s cutting edge
 
hair noticeably
whiter by flashlight
 
            *
 
Never told Lili
about losing
the omelet I muscled down
over two hours
 
balancing yellow shell
green slime
against the olive oil 
flooding the plate
with the slurp of each spoon
 
in the Price Chopper
bathroom because
of the coconut oil she blended 
into my coffee  
 
            *
 
Ed standing
in the driveway
 
over six years ago
saying he and I
 
have about the life
expectancy now
 
 
 

​Handling Pills
 

​ 
Who ever heard of
cancer catching
 
a secondhand cancer
 
caught from linens
the toilet seat lid 
 
            *
 
Use a rubber during
“sexy time”
 
Touch sparingly
the spit up
basin
 
            *
 
Bathroom mirror
 
as if choice 
steers us
clear
 
of time and opportunity  
I marry myself
 
each morning by
no choice of
your own
 
            *
 
Snowplows swoop
down Lynn up
Liberty skipping
our street completely
 
disconnected as it is
from the main
arteries
 
high volume traffic
 
            *
 
Roughening nights
a cascade of wet
beddings
 
an array of laundry baskets
 
I curse myself
for checking the diaper
with my finger
 
checking the furnace
with my finger 
 
 

​Dense Fog

​ 
Inflamed brain on screen
a man hole
to the sewer below
 
steam lifting through snow
my wet iron disc
 
            *
 
Feeding me Xanax
from your hand bag in the ER
 
for gridlock, lockjaw
fumbled zipper
 
I couldn’t find a cup to pee in
 
            *
 
Streetlights flounder in dense fog
 
red smear of warehouse
porchlights dimmed
 
orange the color of aggression
 
            *
 
Consider me unhealthy
for sensitive
groups
 
            *
 
Hollow out a hole for me
please I know
 
my anger’s out of character
 
Just tell me 
what character I should be in
 
what otherwise than human skin