Cameron Morse: When Did We Stop Believing
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
My Father’s House
There is some life left here.
Falling leaves crash
into living branches
red shouldering a path through
a wash of green
windbreakers. Close the double
doors of your eyelids.
Close the double red doors
to the red room of Sunrise,
a chamber that dreams
in ultraviolet, and you will find
the life that is left
in the house my father walked
away from. My giant baby
brother flits bare arms
in the dark window turret,
building a Lego city in the cloud
that chills my writing hand,
the shade that numbs my knuckles,
tightening its gray vise
until light shatters
like a wine glass in my father’s
trembling grip and the tree spills
its green goblet full of red, red leaves.
Over My Head
Dragonflies eddy
above the telephone wires,
sunset a blush in cloud
clover. A spider
tiptoes across the sky,
its nimble fingers
busying about the invisible
thread, preparing
for dinner guests.
Astonishing how vivid
the farthest clouds are,
how loud the cicadas revving up
for sex in the branches
overhead, it’s all over my head,
all of it has been
above me, since my first
birth day. Why is there always
a train wooing away
someplace? When did we stop believing
things were getting better?
At some point, the footlights
go down. Touch the horizon.
Time comes. Call it a day.
Cameron Morse was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2014. With a 14.6 month life expectancy, he entered the Creative Writing Program at the University of Missouri—Kansas City and, in 2018, graduated with an M.F.A. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including New Letters, Bridge Eight, Portland Review and South Dakota Review. His first poetry collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press's 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is Baldy (Spartan Press, 2020). He lives with his wife Lili and two children in Blue Springs, Missouri, where he serves as poetry editor for Harbor Review. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website.
