Matt Morris: Brutal Realism

Photo: Joanna C. Valente

So

you reminded me

     how you’d tumbled former high

school class president

turned insurance agent down

the stairs parenthetically

like a slinky re-

counting over the pretense

of lunch the tragic

story of your life each steep

& slippery step’s brutal         

realism crushing

your ribs to get to the heart

breaking their bony                

seal thus rendering all war-

ranties null & void what scars

showed you showed even

though not asked you left the tip       

to thank me saying

I was a good listener

or

I

think

that’s

what

you

said

---

Matt Morris is the author of Nearing Narcoma, winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Award, (selected by Joy Harjo) and Walking in Chicago with a Suitcase in My Hand, published by Knut House Press.  His poems have appeared in various magazines and anthologies, most recently in Crab Creek Review, FRiGG, and SPANK the CARP.