Jeffrey Morgan
Poetry
Jeffrey Morgan is the author of Crying Shame. A 2017 National Poetry Series Finalist, his poems appear in Copper Nickel, The Kenyon Review Online, Poetry Northwest, Rattle, and West Branch, among others.
Autumn Mannerism
The trees revise their interpretation of burning. I don't have a problem
with it. Maybe if you change every day plot can't find you.
That's where youth goes. It's not time
to pick up my daughter, but I don't have enough time
to go home, so I'm parked in this marginally legal
parking space watching trees shiver in the wind like someone
pressed mute on ominous tremolo.
Sonic nothing, merciful null; I live in one of those towns
where it's easier to beg forgiveness
than ask permission.
Light rain begins to fall
like the baby teeth of something growing larger.
Some kid's grip on the monkey bars slips a little
and he dangles there one-armed.
(Like a leaf, yes.)
There are dozens of children inside that building who know more than me
about how trees sustain themselves, but how many of them
will ever stare at a curated pile of leaves
and try to remember the last time they made a real decision?
No textbook will tell you
fall is the season being in your car feels a little like being in a submarine.
Here I am again in the chrysalis, changing.
The school calendar says tomorrow is chicken pot pie.
The bell is about to ring, and I'm about to be alive.
Listen:
Jeffrey Morgan
Poetry
Jeffrey Morgan is the author of Crying Shame. His poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Pleiades, Rattle, Third Coast, and West Branch.
Another Man They Think I Am at Heart
I feel like I was born angry, and all my life I've been sliding
out of orbit. Nothing is on fire, but everything is,
you know? The uncleared table, the dirty cups and plates
like a city abandoned quickly, crumbs and buttery smudges, ghosts
where they touched their dinners with silver. The world is loud.
The stove's elements, red as four embarrassed faces—
like a family of them—is loud in its way. Four is a family.
Sometimes I get a little confused.
They burn and feel nothing. We do. You have to
cover them with tea kettles to hear their screams, right?
Gas is better—the blue hiss of even heat.
But that one was electric. I remember.
I cut a large garbage bag up with kitchen scissors
like one night becoming many, the past stumbling into the present
then back again as if it had forgotten something
in the other room. Why would a hero need a mask?
Elton John said it right: It's lonely out in space. I kept the fire
extinguisher close like my best girl. I was a bit of a tease.
I showed her off, the hard red tongue of her,
so stingy with her blizzard of kisses.
out of orbit. Nothing is on fire, but everything is,
you know? The uncleared table, the dirty cups and plates
like a city abandoned quickly, crumbs and buttery smudges, ghosts
where they touched their dinners with silver. The world is loud.
The stove's elements, red as four embarrassed faces—
like a family of them—is loud in its way. Four is a family.
Sometimes I get a little confused.
They burn and feel nothing. We do. You have to
cover them with tea kettles to hear their screams, right?
Gas is better—the blue hiss of even heat.
But that one was electric. I remember.
I cut a large garbage bag up with kitchen scissors
like one night becoming many, the past stumbling into the present
then back again as if it had forgotten something
in the other room. Why would a hero need a mask?
Elton John said it right: It's lonely out in space. I kept the fire
extinguisher close like my best girl. I was a bit of a tease.
I showed her off, the hard red tongue of her,
so stingy with her blizzard of kisses.
“ This piece is part of a book length work-in-progress about personae and empathy. The tone of this particular poem perhaps more than any other in manuscript is indebted to the work of Ai. ”
Listen: