MATT MORTONBecause
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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