Matt Morton
Reflections on a Visit to Los Angeles
part firework, part robot: I hiked to the overlook
to glimpse the gussied-up city at night: the off-season
ballpark half-lit beyond the sand acres: drought-
dried grass, cellophane wrappers, coyote shit: the fence―
its curled-up chain-link skirt moved in the wind: a palace
a castle in need of green moat only: there might have been
birds, a sonata trickling out of an adobe duplex
hello moment like a monument: again I find you fragile
verging on crumbling into the sea: Park as in lake
circled by manicured grass where the homeless sweat
in their canvas tents: Echo as in the bleating of cars ricocheting
off cliffs: orange soda bottle cap clanking against
the observatory’s shady-side wall: as in misting into
the past, like the very loud voice of my mother, carried
for years in my stomach’s dried-up well: in close proximity
to the instruction manual: in the vicinity of the hollow
chamber where red blood pumps: where the longing is
Matt Morton's poetry appears in Gulf Coast, Harvard Review, Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. A finalist for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, he is also the recipient of the Sycamore Review Wabash Prize for Poetry, a work-study scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the John Hollander Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He currently is a Robert B. Toulouse Doctoral Fellow in English at the University of North Texas.
Return to November 2015 Edition
part firework, part robot: I hiked to the overlook
to glimpse the gussied-up city at night: the off-season
ballpark half-lit beyond the sand acres: drought-
dried grass, cellophane wrappers, coyote shit: the fence―
its curled-up chain-link skirt moved in the wind: a palace
a castle in need of green moat only: there might have been
birds, a sonata trickling out of an adobe duplex
hello moment like a monument: again I find you fragile
verging on crumbling into the sea: Park as in lake
circled by manicured grass where the homeless sweat
in their canvas tents: Echo as in the bleating of cars ricocheting
off cliffs: orange soda bottle cap clanking against
the observatory’s shady-side wall: as in misting into
the past, like the very loud voice of my mother, carried
for years in my stomach’s dried-up well: in close proximity
to the instruction manual: in the vicinity of the hollow
chamber where red blood pumps: where the longing is
Matt Morton's poetry appears in Gulf Coast, Harvard Review, Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. A finalist for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, he is also the recipient of the Sycamore Review Wabash Prize for Poetry, a work-study scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the John Hollander Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He currently is a Robert B. Toulouse Doctoral Fellow in English at the University of North Texas.
Return to November 2015 Edition