Cameron Morse
Hot Wheels
Cracked knees I am
kneeling
a perfect metaphor
I am scrubbing the sofa
cushion Theo
charged in red sauce
during dinner
the curtains he grabbed
hearing a train
*
Do you ever wish
the chemo
radiotherapy hadn’t
succeeded
Sometimes yes
*
Waiting for my page
to load my
eyelids
drop my breathing
tempo of deep
forest thump
of a lumberjack
*
Infected blood
brain swell
Theo on the rampage
enfolded
my arms closing down
over him
hood slammed on my hand
blood blind ears
in aftershock
bell struck
*
Legs waving in the air
in “car city”
where I recite the names
and dates of Hot
Wheels factories traversing
China Malaysia
Indonesia
the cockroach very
much alive
even after Theo steps down
new to this
Not sure why
Hello Pediatric Dentistry
If framed photos
are windows
in time, then stained
time stained then
birth marked me as well
*
A droplet of Gorilla
glue reaches
for the gearbox
motivating the little toy
car from Hello
Pediatric Dentistry—
why believes my
three-year-old
we brush our pearly whites
Lint clots
the interlocking
teeth, Lili’s long black hairs
*
Our engines grow rancid
without routine
maintenance
romance