Message in Morse Code
by Beth Enson
How—I didn’t know any
word for it—how “unlikely”
Elizabeth Bishop
Before waking
my body
an immense weight
floats Lips and tongue vast
fingers mammoth My will
a speck
diaphanous net of sound
starts to tighten
pings like glass bangles
Rain on the windowpane
the world
why something
why not nothing?
Whispering swish
my father’s razor in the sink
tap tap of metal on porcelain
frenetic tune on the transistor
morning news
Beth Enson lives in northern New Mexico, where she fundraises for her local Birth Center, homeschools her 14-year old daughter, teaches co-counseling, and is at work on her second book of poems. Her first, A Bee In The Sheets, was published jointly in 2001 by Painted Leaf Press and Groundwater Press. She has work in upcoming issues of Mas Tequila Review, The Urban Resistance, Undertow, UNM Taos’s HOWL, and Epicentre. She’s passionately attached to her mad, visionary, conflicted community.
qarrtsiluni 