ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Ruth Elizabeth Morris has a B.A. in Creative Writing from Hollins University and an M.F.A. from the University of Maryland. She has been nominated for a 2018 Pushcart Prize, and she was the First Prize Winner for the 2015 Writer’s Digest Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in Poet Lore, The New Orleans Review, The Seventh Wave, [PANK], and JMWW.
Also by Ruth Elizabeth Morris:
Where You Go
When Same-Sex Marriage is Legalized in Arizona
Uncoupling
Poets Resist
Edited by Rachel Bunting
April 6, 2018
Edited by Rachel Bunting
April 6, 2018
Holding Office Hours After A Mass Shooting
My office window is open but my door is closed
when Henry says, I looked you up online. I read your poems.
Two hours ago, as I was dismissing my class, a text alert:
Armed suspect outside McKeldin Library. Avoid the area. Shelter in place.
The sun shoots from the hip this winter. It’s touch and go.
Thick rays slice the last of the snow to water spilling down the sidewalk
in front of the library. It’s so hot, they’ve turned the fountain on.
Everywhere, water rushes, the walkway dissected by wet wounds in the earth.
Some of my students are wearing shorts. Some of my students
are playing soccer. Some of my students are running; we’re all running;
we’re all looking for a place to hide. It’s the third alert,
the fourth alert, the fifth? in as many months. With the Parkland caskets
not even lowered into the ground, the water is gushing
in the grass and the routine feels like ricochet and then, All clear. False Alarm.
The day has stopped and started again. And Henry is in my office.
He wants to talk about the goat poem — he found it on the internet.
It should be the first sunbeam through the window in the morning.
A newly-shoveled path after the snow. Innocuous, little thrill, a fidget of joy.
Except, in this poem, two lesbians are trying to braise a goat shoulder
and now he knows I am one of the lesbians and my door is closed and we’re alone
and he’s unzipping his backpack to reach inside. The teeth
scrape to yowl a low sound that howls like a siren in the distance.
But the backpack holds what a backpack should hold:
his notes from class, a pen, a textbook. Henry smiles. I smile too. I still
open the door before we begin.
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
