Poem by Rusty Morrison

our aptitude for perishing   
 
 
a caterpillar on this     beach where you’re walking miles from        
shrubs how did it crawl so far      last night’s storm left a leafless     
branch on your porch its many       twig-ends pointing at nothing 
 
you can follow though you can’t      stop listening at every
deep recess of its quiet      some silences just stay wide        
you watched for a long time your      mom’s mouth fallen open at 
 
death a shape that your mouth can’t      mimic some silence thickens      
to a mask that you can’t stop      wearing abrasive as sand
granules you try to rub from    your skin as if they weren’t skin 
 
& beneath them you’d find what’s 
firm as the earth waiting for
you

​

Rusty Morrison’s five books include After Urgency (Tupelo), which won The Dorset Prize & the true keeps calm biding its story (Ahsahta), which won the Sawtooth Prize, the Academy of American Poet’s James Laughlin Award, the Northern California Book Award, & the DiCastagnola Award from Poetry Society of America. Her most recent book, Beyond the Chainlink (Ahsahta), was a finalist for the NCIBA and also for the NCBA Awards in Poetry. Her poems were recently accepted by or have appeared in Academy of American Poets Poem-a-day, Colorado Review, Fence, Volt, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, Lana Turner, and elsewhere. She has taught poetry, poetics, and craft in graduate programs, at conferences, and in private consultations and workshops. She has been co-publisher of Omnidawn (www.omnidawn.com) since 2001. Her website www.rustymorrison.com.

---