From my hurt back
the snow-lit predawn sky is pewter,
or lava, according to my best
guess color chart
on Pinterest. “Pewter” works,
but I like lava because it feels red
on the inside, always ready
to erupt. Yeah, that’s me,
all right: the disaster magnet
whose back gives out
on the toilet Christmas morning
now has COVID-19 with special thanks
to chemotherapy: body hair
in the bathtub. My wife grows wary
of the holidays. Theo thanks me
for the crane truck over the phone in the E.R.
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.
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
