Cameron Morse: Repose


Rest here a while.
Let the cold of the cratered
stoop persuade you to be
an ant for the day. Reconcile yourself 
to no great works of water
or wind. Surrender your hopes
and expectations and a robin
may step into the tangle of branches
above you, the welter of neurons,
a ball of barbed wire. A nest
may become the bubblegum in your sister’s hair,
the brainy wad she went to bed with
in her mouth. Lay your head
upon the doormat and the robin might alight
again, come and go again, and the limb
it leaps from will shake. It will stir.
Just as the life you thought you had in language
will return. You will pounce. Bite down
and let its juices drench your chin.
If you are a lion, you will slumber like a lion.
If you are a dog, you will need no pardon.