In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Telltale
  • Matt Morton (bio)

They spin at the top of the Ferris wheel, the childrenwere spinning. I am poking my eyethrough a pinpoint hole in the bottom of a Styrofoam cup.Like an orange, it peels awayfrom my teeth, my mouth filling upwith little white canoes. Midnight, and we found newantlers hanging on the wall, shadows hanging on the wallbehind them cast by the yellow moon hanging outsidethe glass. The ceiling ribboned and bowed.Cast at the peak, cast at the peak.What sails singsthrough the air, flies over the flungacrosssurface in the general direction of swans. Bluenot black like the barrel with pumpkinseed floating,where my head shoved, my mouth filling upwith scales and fins, with nothing,the nothing sour and wet on my tongue. I must say,the frogs in the yard, I must say.But the sun, warm on the white skin on my arm,and my bare feet touching cool dirt,walking on the soft green needles. Tingthe hidden bird Ting like tapping the silver trianglelike dangling upside down among springtime leaves,shins shining in the light.I was the king of deserts, I cradled a little glacierunder my tongue. The fraction of an inchwhere the sand dune meets the sea, that,that is the salt I was talking aboutexactly! Me and my brother founda bronze key on the ground under the aspen.No, not with my eyes closed.In the meadow, the aspensdropping gold in the quiet in the snow. [End Page 137] But you are my brother but there is a ghost on your faceI said. You said listen the chimes haveand then we were running with the scarecrowon our heels the face the yarn hair sliced off comingfrom its stuck open mouth the gaping, and my mouth filling upwith the soundlessness we were runningacross the meadow away fromthe stick legs hold up the terrible woundand she was running and we were running and the sawdustis running out behind her across the field. [End Page 138]

Matt Morton

Matt Morton was a 2013 finalist for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Diode, Hayden’s Ferry Review, New Orleans Review, Subtropics, and Washington Square, among others. He lives and teaches in Baltimore, where he is an Owen Scholars Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars.

...

pdf

Share