Cameron Morse

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.