MATT MORTON

Because


because there were moments
                                              when I could stop
under a leafless tree,
                                exhale slowly,
and watch my breath shape itself into something
                                                                        vague and indestructible, its fog
made visible precisely by the darkness
                                                          that surrounds but cannot contain it
—when I was able to wonder,
                                               without irony, at how compelling
the evidence is, the evidence introduced into the air by a single breath,
and appreciate its argument
                                            for my being here, its fragility a proof of something absolute,
impossible to grasp
                               —when I could see my breath hanging on the night,
then watch it fade,
                              a disappearance that required
no biography, no motive, its own resolution
                                                                  —when I could be still, without resignation
or acquiescence, for once not shifting my feet
or checking the time,
                                 and accept the being there,
even as I witnessed my own vanishing,
                                                            aware
of the darkness and the cold, which are unconditional,
                                                                                 and not shrink from them

 
  
138 The Paris-American

Matt Morton was a 2013 Finalist for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship and a 2013 Finalist in Narrative’s 30 Below Contest. His poems appear or are forthcoming in 32 Poems, Colorado Review, The Cincinnati Review, New Ohio Review, and Hayden’s Ferry Review, among others. Originally from Rockwall, Texas, he currently lives and teaches in Baltimore, where he is an Owen Scholars Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. (www.mattmortonpoetry.com)

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