Poetry by Cameron Morse

              David Prasad CC



The Manger


Looking for a way 
in, an entrance 
among the long, light-
struck blades 
intermarried with chain 
links at sunset. My children 
are the messages I 
transmit: It's good enough 
to be here. August is 
balmy, the world a manger 
where gods get born among the cow dung. 
Turned out leaves, I shove 
my flaccid fingers 
into the tube of another onesie. 
Pull the pattern into view: 
stars or flowers 
or something. Call me blessed 
and I will allow it, 
no questions asked. Every sunset 
is light bled. If the path 
into the poem is a body bag, 
open one for me, if a satchel, 
I'll trade you my back pack. 

​



The Rain


I love it when my iPhone 
doesn't say it will rain 
and it does, it totally does,
 
because my smartphone 
can't hear the wind change, 
its long low rasp a tiger

breathing in the sieve 
of the leaves, and it can't see 
the leaves stirring responsively
 
in the tingling terror 
of midday dark. It can’t feel 
the urge to undress as I do

or obey it, stripping down 
before the bathwater 
gash of sky I'm getting ready 

to soak me clean, pristine 
as an infant in my mother’s blood. 

​


Cameron Morse is Senior Reviews editor at Harbor Review and the author of six collections of poetry. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is Far Other (Woodley Press, 2020). He holds and MFA from the University of Kansas City—Missouri and lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife Lili and two children. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website.