“Getting Somewhere” by Cameron Morse

The more times I go back for more

and find it there like a bowl

of dogfood left out on the back deck

by an unknown and therefore 

unthanked hand, I think I just might 

be getting somewhere with this 

unrequested life. It’s hard to wake up

at 5AM, but a voice keeps 

telling me to, and I keep listening. 

Willing myself to rise, unstrap 

the clammy splint, and shove off the wad

of twisted blankets: Alone 

after Lili rolls over, repositioning 

her enormously swollen belly once again, 

“with child.” The children already 

here go on snoozing despite the malicious cheep  

of the coffee maker and my shuffles. 

I raise myself in winter feels like zero degrees 

because of north wind and avoid 

the sliding door, the bald moonlight. Stuck inside, 

bad odors. It’s scary to feel so dead, 

so stagnant and wasted. To know you have nothing 

to offer, perhaps you never did. But then, 

a small movement, almost unnoticed, occurs. 

Better follow. See what happens.

---

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.

Image Credit