keep the show on the air
reading Melissa Morphew’s Bluster
1
Decay so everyday natural it’s not necessary
to stop and catch your breath, just hold on
to the only matchstick pole not broken
in this hurricane while the camera
rolls. Stand pat, keep talking,
keep the show on the air.
Matter of fact autopsy of the sacrament
of marriage in a voice so Tennessee
soft it covers every sharp corner
the way kudzu does till
all the world is green
and you’d swear there’s nothing there
that could cut you, all smiles bland and
expected as the courtesy of name tags.
2
You see the haint at the front door when
you open it, standing there plain as day
an orphan, and you take her in
because you can’t even leave
the cold that will drown you
homeless. And you know
you have to keep the door
ajar for the spirit
that will make you sway
like dancing, but it is no sin,
the way the gray contempt for sky
you call a storm edged perfect day
looks like hope, but it is no virtue.
3
take a hard look at what you thought
love and you won’t doubt
the world is flat
no matter what they say about that oblate
spheroid shit. The edges are there all right
shrouded in time like some parasite
vine so dense no light escapes,
and it will cut you.
Call all this miscellaneous
for a laugh in a voice sweet as
candied violets full of purring hope,
but you know there’s a touch of winter
behind it, and it’s bound and determined
to come, come hell or high water.
reviewed by Steven Schroeder, Chicago
Melissa Morphew. Bluster. Sacramento Poetry Center Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-9831362-1-7.