Cameron Morse


Heliotrope 


Head of a sun
flower, tilted saucer, 
in my sunhat
silhouette, my red beard
of gravity 

               aforementioned 
               or shadowed 
               earthward 

for a place on the ground
to grovel, a place to interlace 
our shoes and shower. 

               Somewhere, a sunbather
               in dark glasses, I can only guess, 
               dialed to silence, or static, 

dissolves into laughter, ecstasy
rotating in midair. Waves
good morning.  



Wayward


A word may
match this moment

in my mind, this
sagging bag 

of groceries, 
the eggs rolling out 
of their carton. 

May be the word 
is “cartoon,” 

because I cannot 
contain, 

I can only ape 
myself in language

colorfully. But by 
what other gauge

I may read the blood 
pressure of a 
langur 

monkey is a mystery.   
May be a word, 

but not every one is 
wired this way
wordly.  



Bygones


Backspace, backspace, 
backspace, sky 
blank, uninscribed 
afternoon, the palindrome 
of noon after noon 
after noon. Recombinant 

day by day, agrees 
to let bygones be bygones.   
Breathe, and breathe, 
and tidy up. Prepare lunch. 
A parade of garbage 
bags, scabs, bed
wet beddings, marches

wedding marches. Renewals: 
the slew, the slaw. 
Wallpaper the bedroom, the newsstand 
standing beside you, 
the still in which you read yourself. 



Labor Day


Green morning 
rinsing the canister

of our dusty vacuum
cleaner I am 

footprints in water

vapor, 
forgotten or—

forgetting something 
important. 

It’s Labor Day.

Lili sweeps out the drive 
way while I walk

our sunlit children
shadowed by mosquitoes. 

I am an empty canister, 
forgotten memory. 

Green morning
rinses through me.
 

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.

 
 

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