UntitledAuthor(s): Michael MorseSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Spring - Summer, 1993), p. 104Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20153416 .

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Two Poems Michael Morse

Untitled

That a body might sag with many weights and buoy itself with the word,

although the word fails its captain

many a time and to/for no avail

we of the lesser rank do toil:

take a town called Agnes with its fine people and subpar soil,

its metal gate and burnt red brick

with a clutch of blue gray lichen spin. All night a mayor's words echoed in my head

and wanting this language myself and others much like me

found the outskirts of Agnes and I swear our clapping came like rain.

There were stairs past heavy doors

on shrill hinges and finally a window

looking out over a town,

still Agnes perhaps, all but lights now and our eyes tracking out to lights end

where water lays a black tarp, where captains look east and want,

out of the blue, their little red-red.

104

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