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| HOWEVER RICH by Cameron Morse Shave Gel Theo says Mama and hands me a hair from your head so long its ends have twirled together. Today is the bottle of my shave gel he won’t let go of as if it contained some wish-granter and his wish were to replace me forever in the equation of mommy and me. Theo crawls into the family room crate, corning Sherlock, and pulls shut the door behind him. Pull the plume he discovers shed hair sticks between fingers, dog hair and cobwebs, all the ephemera of having a baby cricket in your afternoon’s last mouthful of ice coffee. I could see Theo stabbing the tolerant, sad-eyed cockapoo out of sheer curiosity but for the distraction of a garbage truck, salvation from the tedium of homestay parenting, parenting home, I stay at home. My life is an unanswered question and every day I ask again. WARNING LABEL I know my mouth is open. I would like to close my burning eyes in the heatstroke sun of the first of July. But the yellow snail kiddie pool describes how children drown, one by one, in language after language. Three dusty lawn chairs surround me. Theo carries an orange cup. When the idea of a refill strikes him, he grunts at the spigot, begins to cry then comes to fetch water from inflatable rubber lining of the snail. I try to think of all the things I’ve heard said, or read, and what might not yet have been written. In tree shade, the pendulum of his child swing veers right as if S-hooked a link shorter on that side, his neck flopped right. His ballcap drops. Uh-oh, he says. One of the first words he learned, he learned from me. Looking for Things to Do We look for things to do is how it works with evenings like water the wilting donkey ears of the hyacinths. Then forget it, they’ll come back next year. Things to do like scent of spearmint. Do that, then pull the pin oaks out of the flowerbed. Do battle with the centipede, little man. Snip its body segments, its fused legs, with garden shears, releasing war cries not baby cries, yuck! Dirty, dirty, yuck, yuck, soldier. You look for things to do, then watch, after the boy trooper goes to bed, but nothing can distract from the guilty hungers of pregnancy and I might as well be rinsing mushrooms in the kitchen sink as finishing the latest sequel to Halloween. However Rich I’m afraid of protein. I’m afraid of what aid too many sausage links may supply my brain tumor. However rich my life, I will always want more where that came from. The more I drink, the thirstier I am. Last night I found three glasses waiting in the study. I’m always looking for my water because I leave it everywhere: on the coffee counter, the piano, in the guest bedroom, in the mailbox, yes, the mailbox, like when Theo takes off and I give chase, not wanting to carry anything on our walk down the lane. I can go a while without fear, walking along Golfview Drive as if we didn’t have to get back in time for breakfast, but then I pick up my boy and carry him home. MEN’S WAREHOUSE I open up the blood between my toes scratching the ancient fungus. Hold my hands behind my back and Theo copies me. His big head perched on slender shoulders. My little brother strums praise & worship storms on his acoustic, almost as bad as I was. Barb talks about her women’s group cancer patients, the one in remission, the one in hospice, her autistic grandson. I hate the distance between Kansas City and Spokane, man. Lili drove me to Grand Rapids in my rented tux to deliver a speech before the children smashed your pinata in the church basketball court. Our emergency lights jammed on early the frosty morning of our departure. I tried to buy a knife in a gas station, couple of Armenian guys looking back at me blankly through bulletproof glass. In the end, I yanked loose the entire console just to stop the clicking. About the Author: .jpg) Cameron Morse was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2014. With a 14.6 month life expectancy, he entered the Creative Writing Program at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and, in 2018, graduated with an M.F.A. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including New Letters, Bridge Eight, Portland Review and South Dakota Review. His first poetry collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His three subsequent collections are Father Me Again (Spartan Press, 2018), Coming Home with Cancer (Blue Lyra Press, 2019), and Terminal Destination (Spartan Press, 2019). He lives with his pregnant wife Lili and son Theodore in Blue Springs, Missouri, where he manages Inklings’ FOURTH FRIDAYS READING SERIES with Eve Brackenbury and serves as poetry editor for Harbor Review. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website. |
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