West Virginia

There is shelter in a song.
Almost heaven, sings Denver,
and I sing to my children.
I photograph them crouched
upon the especially green
crest of our leaf-shaded yard
in the middle of June.
There are songs I wish I had
sung in the coffee house
at Calvin before I lost the power
of my left hand to form chords
on the fretboard. West Virginia
makes me wonder where
my home is. Certainly not here
where I sit in driveway
riot of ants, the dirt of their
settlements lining cracks
between the concrete blocks. No,
and not at Calvin either, where
I wasn’t Dutch, wasn’t C.R.C.,
wasn’t even comfortable
in my own raucous skin, my torn
army jacket. My balding scalp
itched and now nowhere
can I locate for myself the sound
of running water emanating
from a neighbor’s lawn, water
or wind whisking the pinwheel
glint of foil in their flowerbed.
Barefoot, I step into the hot street.
Almost to the other side, I stop
at the truckbed piled with kitchen
trash spiraling flies, the smashed
storm door, air conditioner
perched in an open window
wondering about West Virginia.

Cameron Morse is Senior Reviews editor at Harbor Review and the author of eight collections of poetry. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His latest is The Thing Is (Briar Creek Press, 2021). He holds and MFA from the University of Kansas City—Missouri and lives in Independence, Missouri, with his wife Lili and (soon, three) children. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website.