Poetry
Morgan Walls
Fingerprints
Crumpled T2 t-shirt covered in yesterday’s breakfast
Play kitchen pitcher holding half of a plastic easter egg and a miniature spatula
Vase of last week’s roses cut from the yard - browned and crisp
Oiled stovetop skillet with the last burnt pancake left to cool before tossing
Three unmatched socks of differing sizes stuffed under the ottoman
The fingerprints of our lives
We wipe off the window when company comes
Huron on a Bad Day
A pall of clouds slid in
Under a starry night.
The big lake—yesterday unbroken as a mirror
Reflecting azul skies and crystalline sunlight
—Today brooding and tempestuous.
Frothed water thrusts rocks up the bank.
Piles of stone clash and roll
Pausing only as the big lake breathes in
before descending once more.
The dark place where the waves suck under themselves
Is a whisper of wrecking nights:
Bows splinter in an upheaval of water
Waves descend heavy and full
Lighting cracks across the sky
Long enough to illume
Sailors in waders and life vests
Scurrying along the deck.
Six thousand broken vessels in the Great Lakes.
Thirty thousand waterlogged lives.
Not including widows and children.
Rocks kick against my ankles
Waves devour themselves.
Huron saying I could.
I could if I wanted to.
Morgan Walls is an author and creative writing educator based in Michigan. Her work appears in Friday Flash Fiction, Kind Writers Magazine, The Oak Tree Review, and elsewhere. You can follow her writing journey via Facebook (Morgan Walls) or Instagram (@mwalls.author). In her spare time, she chases toddlers, occasionally beats her husband at Othello, and adventures around the greater Lansing area.