A nineteen-year-old girl
tied to a cemetery tree. Look up
he says, and she does it: dark morning
clouds adrift, scrawling across
the sky their illegible script.
Wind slips like a razorblade
over the strop
twisting branches. Rainwater
gurgles into the ground.
The ligatures tighten.
I’ve been here my entire life
looking up, losing feeling
feeling bound
to the body and its habits,
to the earth and its laws
to its laws and its
lawlessness.
Cameron Morse taught and studied in China. He is currently an MFA candidate at UMKC and lives with his wife, Lili, in Blue Springs, Missouri. His work has been or will be published in I-70 Review, TYPO, Otis Nebula, Sleet, Steam Ticket, Referential Magazine, Rufous City Review, Small Print Magazine, Two Hawks Quarterly, First Class Literary Magazine, Phantom Kangaroo, Cha and District Lit.