Internal Combustion
There can be nothing
but these hands
fastened to the steering
wheel, these eyes
flickering from the
sheet metal
salmon upstream
to the rear-view mirror
in which I have lost
myself, feather
dust on the trigger finger.
In which I go
blind, snuffed out
completely. There can be
nothing else, nothing
spilled. No furtive
sip. No finger slip
even to silence
the alarm ringing
in my ears.
My spark plug sets fire
to the engine
over a hundred times
a second. Flinch,
flash, swerve. Arrive,
if driven, riven.
A part of you still in
the car is racing.
Cameron Morse lives with his wife, Lili, and two children in Independence, Missouri. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is Baldy (Spartan Press, 2020). He holds an MFA from the University of Kansas City, Missouri and serves as a poetry editor at Harbor Review and the poetry editor at Harbor Editions.
