Yellow Curry

Theo raises the bowl to in both hands.
A mudslide of ground beef and bell pepper
buries the lower half of his face.
Yellow pellets of lawn fertilizer speckle
the driveway, pearls embedded
in the side yard. I trace the trajectory
of turmeric from the whipped spoon
to the pastel wall behind his booster seat.
Somewhere a bird calls. I recognize
the shriek of a blue jay. Another sounds out
the vowel in you, you, you—pew,
the bench at which Lili sits. Napkins clump
below her mopping hand. Theo swings
arms in wide arcs, steaking the butcher block.
Trucks and sedans breeze along Duncan.
Things are near and far away. Globs of sauce
dangle from his chin. Sun suffuses
light among the clouds. A ramshackle pack
of leaves scampers across the cul-de-sac.

 

 

Cameron Morse lives with his wife Lili and son Theodore in Blue Springs, Missouri. He was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2014. With a 14.6 month life expectancy, he entered the Creative Writing program at the University of Missouri—Kansas City and, in 2018, graduated with an M.F.A. His poems have been published in numerous magazines, including New Letters, Bridge Eight, and South Dakota Review. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award. His second, Father Me Again, is available from Spartan Press and chapbook Coming Home with Cancer is forthcoming in Blue Lyra Press’s Delphi Poetry Series. For more information, check out his Facebook page or website.