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  • Vardaman
  • Matt Morton (bio)

My brother is Darl. He went to Jackson on the train.

I saw my brother crying on the boxwhere my mother is. A big moonsawed in half above him crying forwhat my mother took with her whenshe left the day. Where did she goI asked my brother. It is alwaysnight where she is he said.My brother’s head is full of flames.I can’t see them. I can see two bluecircles like holes of sky punched througha fence and why is there no smoke.One day I found something she wrote.I showed my brother and he took itand he said you can keep a secret goodso I knew it was somethingthat could be mine and his but not for my fatherand not for my mother. My brother’s brainis wrong but my brother is right. It was nightwhen he went on the train. The sun is on firetoo and it runs on tracks too. Firstit is night and then it goes up up and overand then it goes down and thenit is night again. Timemust run on tracks too because it goesin a big circle and that is why clocks.A clock is a long timeand it is also a short time. I haveto do all the not-telling myself now.Crying on the box of my motherunder a moonhalf. Bright blue holesof shining. One day I’ll go in a boxtoo with night in it like my mother [End Page 15] and my mother will be thereand we will get on a red trainand ride through the night trees and blackleaves with moon on themto where my brother iswaiting in the cool airwith no more fire inside his head. [End Page 16]

Matt Morton

Matt Morton was a 2013 Finalist for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Colorado Review, 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.

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