Cecil Morris
Cecil Morris, a retired school teacher and Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, has poems in 2River View, Common Ground Review, Hole in the Head Review, and elsewhere. His collection of poems about teaching and school, At Work in the Garden of Possibilities, just came out from Main Street Rag.
Ode to the First Things I Was Thankful For
The slice of all day darkness beneath the bed,
a retreat, a hideaway where no adult
could come, the realm of dust, escaped matchbox cars,
and missing marbles, there a small child’s heaven,
a sanctum sanctorum before I could read
or knew such words, when Superman was only
the magic action drawn between clouds of words,
when Fortress of Solitude was a feeling
and not an idea. And there, under the bed,
the cold and seamless linoleum, its slip
and slide, inside and under belly, the slick
of it and its close and comforting silence,
a hibernaculum from which I could watch
a six-inch band of life, of feet and ankles,
of shoes, coming and going, an ebb and flow,
a tide, and me the hidden crab at the wall
and safe, my cheek pressed on the linoleum
attuned to vibrations moving through the house.
And the box springs above me close, the texture
of its fabric and its evenly spaced slats
my fingers could leap across, could count and count,
the number never changing, my first constants,
the scents of me myself and dust and steelies
and matchbox cars.
My Baby, Ode #10
My baby got no use for possessive pronouns,
singular or plural, yours mine ours or theirs.
She got no use for terms of endearment
or sweet diminutives or anything
whispered anywhere about her body
to her body. My baby says speak up,
says shout now, says let everyone hear
a mighty adoration, a reverence.
Be the cantor for this body, she says.
Sing to it and let it respond, let it sing
the song of satisfaction, the song of joy,
the song of peace be upon you and in you,
the song of many happy returns. Sing
and be sung to. My baby says don’t be
shy, says this is no place for blushing
or embarrassment or hesitation,
no place for reluctance or half measures.
She says go all in or go home. She needs
someone who will work, who will put muscle
to words, who will sweat and build and weed
and work algorithms to fruition.
My baby got no use for lazy
or selfish. She says I could be the one.
