Rotavirus, haemophilus
influenzae type b, pneumococcal
conjugate, polio,
diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, all in one
one-inch needle.
The language of pain is foreign
to my newborn son.
I speak the tongue of dead infants, an ocean
swollen over millennia, blue babies
washing up upon the shore.
Blood slides down his thigh, dodging
the Band-aid. Blood smears his skin, smudges
the table paper. His cries reach the knifepoint pitch
of betrayal. Two months old
today and I have already betrayed him.
Cameron Morse lives with his wife Lili and son Theodore in Blue Springs, Missouri. He was diagnosed with a glioblastoma in 2014. With a 14.6 month life expectancy, he entered the Creative Writing program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and, in 2018, graduated with an M.F.A. His poems have been published in over 100 different magazines, including New Letters, Bridge Eight, and South Dakota Review. His first collection, Fall Risk, won Glass Lyre Press’s 2018 Best Book Award.
Links to work online: