Nocturne in My Favorite Coat
Meanwhile, the moon’s bone white
& waxing crescent—my God, it’s winking
isn’t it? I do that too
on less moderate nights than this
& when my legs are bare
against the encroaching
dimmet. I’m just
cleaned up for work
in the meantime.
You laugh but you know
I mean it. I laugh because
I’m hardly joking:
in all my daydreams I am that lawless
& gaudy, arriving everywhere feeling armed
& rich. Winking too. Just like the moon
I phase. Am full. Am winking.
Am thumbnail, naturally.
& so modern.
When I put my legs up
& dissociate there’s nothing
like it. The moon wishes.
I put on lipstick when I want
to smoke a cigarette. Wink
if I want to. Really living.
When the bills come due I’ll get ornery
& radical. It’s not enough
that I log on every day
& consume consume consume.
It’s embarrassing.
How much I like buying things.
But who doesn’t want.
It’s midnight & I need
more cigarettes so I wear my long coat
to the bodega. It’s my favorite. I flirt
with the guy behind the counter
who’s too underpaid to notice.
He hasn’t got time for my nonsense.
I get it. On the street no one but the moon
can tell I’m just going home to smoke
& put my legs up. At least I hope I look mysterious—
walking so fast & with such purpose
my coat billowing.
It Could Happen to You
The city is discouraging enough without the heatwaves
& parking tickets. Will you ever make it. Will you ever
find work. What are the chances someone here
has a gun. What are your roommates saying when
you aren’t home. Do you care. Are you taking more
than your share from the community garden. Has anyone
noticed. Are your brothers safe. Will you die in a mass
shooting. Does your shrink talk about you in the hypothetical
to her friends. Would it bother you. Are you fooling
anyone. Suppressing the prickly suspicion that dreams
are not of this time you go after them. Grind. Exfoliate.
Pumice flaws from your skin until you are flawless.
At least visibly. Floss, non-colloquially. Pay the parking
tickets. Collect vinyl, like everyone is. Clean your toilet.
Change your sheets. Console a friend whose dog
has just died. Publish, but you are not fulfilled. Then, in a park
pigeons scattered by children ruin a picture you’re trying to take
of the sunset for a poet you follow on Twitter
who is just as lonely as you are lonely. You’re mad at first,
but after all, it is only a picture, just a sunset, & the children
don’t know what they’ve done, nor the spooked pigeons.
Abeyance
Who knows what else we did.
Cleared inboxes, hung new curtains.
I in my smoke-blue apartment washed
my face & contemplated empire. Still life
with bad news & hair dye. Self portrait
with mugwort & thistle. It was hard
to make any progress. I ran the tap & wept
for my people. History rolled up
in the blunt or sneering in the doorway.
Sanctimonious as an ex. Calling me
yellow. I was shrugged shoulders & cigarette ash
flicked at the fireplace. (No fire.) Limpid
nonchalance. You weren’t supposed to pay
attention. That was one of the rules.
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Chad Morgan's poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Adroit Journal, Court Green, Hobart, and elsewhere. He has studied at Indiana University and Columbia College and lives in Chicago.