Matt Morris: Brutal Realism
So
you reminded me
how you’d tumbled former high
school class president
turned insurance agent down
the stairs parenthetically
like a slinky re-
counting over the pretense
of lunch the tragic
story of your life each steep
& slippery step’s brutal
realism crushing
your ribs to get to the heart
breaking their bony
seal thus rendering all war-
ranties null & void what scars
showed you showed even
though not asked you left the tip
to thank me saying
I was a good listener
or
I
think
that’s
what
you
said
Matt Morris is the author of Nearing Narcoma, winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Award, (selected by Joy Harjo) and Walking in Chicago with a Suitcase in My Hand, published by Knut House Press. His poems have appeared in various magazines and anthologies, most recently in Crab Creek Review, FRiGG, and SPANK the CARP.