REPLICA IN HELIUM & ETHER
by CINDY HUNTER MORGAN
Late September in a fire tower
above bugling elk, and I’m drinking tea –
steam rising from the cup
as though I’ve brought my own
smoke for the red-tipped maples,
my own liquid for the river.
Some days my body floats free
of itself. It’s not just the soul, but
all of myself detached from itself –
one self hovering like a balloon,
and one reckoning the angle
of the sun. Here above autumn,
the trick is not how to keep
one aloft, but how to coax
a shadow back into the body.
CINDY HUNTER MORGAN is the author of a full-length poetry collection and two chapbooks. Harborless (Wayne State University Press) is a 2018 Michigan Notable Book and the winner of the 2017 Moveen Prize in Poetry. Apple Season won the Midwest Writing Center’s 2012 Chapbook Contest, judged by Shane McCrae. The Sultan, The Skater, The Bicycle Maker won The Ledge Press 2011 Poetry Chapbook Award. She writes regularly for Murder Ballad Monday, a blog devoted to the exploration of the murder ballad tradition in folk and popular music. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Tin House Online, The American Journal of Poetry, Salamander, The Pinch, and West Branch.