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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
      • Jezzelle Kellam Fall 2022
      • Irina Greciuhina Fall 2022
      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
      • Mark Yale Harris Fall 2022
      • Amy Nelder Fall 2022
      • Bette Ridgeway Fall 2022
      • Ursula Sokolowska Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
      • Lisa Ampleman Fall 2022
      • Will Cordeiro Fall 2022
      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
      • Peter O'Donovan Fall 2022
      • Mackenzie Carignan Fall 2022
      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
      • Barbara Saunier Fall 2022
      • Chad Weeden Fall 2022
      • Nick Rattner Fall 2022
      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
      • Summer J. Hart Fall 2022
      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
      • Liz Robbins Fall 2022
      • john compton Fall 2022
      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
      • Rachel Reynolds Fall 2022
      • Kimberly Ann Priest Fall 2022
      • Annie Przypyszny Fall 2022
      • Konstantin Kulakov Fall 2022
      • Nellie Cox Fall 2022
      • Jennifer Martelli Fall 2022
      • SM Stubbs Fall 2022
      • Joshua Bird Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
      • Otis Fuqua Fall 2022
      • Hannah Harlow Fall 2022
      • Natalia Nebel Fall 2022
      • Kate Maxwell Fall 2022
      • Helena Pantsis Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
      • Courtney Ludwick Fall 2022
      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022

Eric Morris

Short Documentary Film

                                          
Cut to a highway overpass like a bomb
shelter. An unsuspecting family of four
driving into Oklahoma en route to Wichita,
Kansas to visit grandma with terminal
dementia. Cut to an airborne Dodge Caravan
in need of an oil change, paint job to cover
the primer, tire rotation, rear end suspension.
Cut to the damage sustained after being dropped
from the heavens, like an asteroid with a VIN.
Cut to the loss of virginity in the arms
of a stranger, on the eve of disaster, on the hood
of the aforementioned Dodge caravan.
Cut to Leonardo DiCaprio and coal sketches
of naked women as the wind kicks at strands
of pubic hair. Cut to a dissected doublewide.
A cowboy missing his horse. A blemished sun
smeared from the sky, like finger paintings
by blind children. Cut to me in my boxers
watching reruns of the catastrophe unfolding
on Cinemax, a bucket of popcorn pressed
between my thighs next to a warm Miller Lite.
Cut to commercial: American Idol, Midol,
Tampax, and Listerine, so when in the casket
the extra’s teeth will sparkle. Cut to a sex scene
as the storm front bares down on the log cabin
and somehow fire still glistens on flesh,
the improbable romance. Cut to a makeup
artist whose specialty is corpses, battle scars,
and werewolves. Cut werewolves from the script.
Cut to neck braces, gurneys, a man scalped
by a satellite dish dislodged from the balcony
of the luxury condos. Cut to a vase of quiet
petunias that show no signs of trauma.
Cut to the family of four now huddled in a public
bathhouse in Texas. Cut to the storm chasers
and the widows in thin veils with tissues.
Cut to rows of children in the tornado position
as if knelt in prayer, waiting for class to be cancelled.
Cut to a child crying in the shell of a bungalow,
a meteorologist in the studio, waiting for news
from the field reporter recently relocated
to the emergency ward at St. Anthony’s hospital.
Cut to commercial: Depends, Clearasil, Nicorette.
Cut to onlookers standing too close and poking
the funnel with a stick like a sleeping wolverine,
​like a grenade that failed in its time of need,
but kicking might get a desired result. Cut to a man
in a mobile home. Rather, man in a mobile casket.
Cut to a hillbilly without a clue or sense
of hygiene, acting like he saw something other
than the insides of a prostitute. Cut to the scars
in the heartland. An aerial view, serpentine burial
mounds the indigenous constructed like veins
running away from arteries. Cut to a two
by-four thrown through a retaining wall,
spear-like. Cut to the calm. The aftermath where all
the citizens reveal themselves, act as if just born,
and cry until the golden retriever crawls out
from beneath the wreckage. Cut to the credits:
Tommy Lee Jones as the tornado. Winona Ryder
as distraught widow. Jack Nicholson and Danny Devito
as homeless guys two and three, respectively. Me as
consumer accumulating ample late charges when
the VCR eats a video. Cut to me as casualty surviving
the day-to-day weather, surviving, but aware of tomorrow.
​

Seasonal Affective Disorder


February, I am flooded with sorrow.
It pains me to know we will not
rendezvous until next year.
Next year I’ve sworn you off, a rash I’ve picked
for the time it takes the sun to orbit
this inclement rock. If only we were better
acquainted and made love for no other
reason than to make love. If only you weren’t
a foreign entity to my body, the splinter
to be removed with pliers, the tick to be burnt
with the sharp end of a fine cigar, a peppermint
lodged tight in my throat. February, I will fill
you with heated helium to make your body
a dirigible and shoot you down as the threat
you are not, but would kill to be. If only my corpse,
though still alive, had climate control settings:
a thermostat to cool me off when you fire me up,
storm windows to keep you outdoors and lonely.
It doesn’t. I carry on. Next year, the lake effect
is preempted by some little disorder that leaves me
vulnerable to your tactless pickup lines, and affinity
for role playing, though this is as unpredictable as you.
My meticulous body incessantly plots against me.
The peppermint melts, undoing itself all together.


Will of the Meteorologist


​Under the proper kind of weather,
I want to be remembered as the reporter

who brought you Winter Storm Watch ’94,
the evening edition of Flood Warning,

and warned you, devout public, to cover
your petunias, wrap them in turtlenecks

when a frost kill threatened the summer
of ’87. I’ve defined myself by the cumulus-

nimbus, the calming effect of rain on Chilean
llamas, and the distress a July sky causes

golfers on the back nine. A fog has settled
on my horizon. May the following bequests

be made on the occasion of my passing:
I bestow to my daughter, April, my poncho

from embedded reporting on Hurricane
Andrew. To my first son from my third

marriage, I leave my faithful thermometer.
Its bottom has leaked mercury for years.

My second wife, if she’s still alive,
please, find my other set of keys

for the evacuated, but storm-friendly condo
in the Gulf. To no one in particular, I wish

to impart a weather-beaten hemorrhoid pillow
from seasons of storm tracking behind a desk

cascaded by a jet stream map of lonely Seattle.
For years, I projected baseball to be rained out

on account of tornados, grapefruit-sized hail.
Dual Doppler radar tracked me like El Niño,

the sky now empty as it ever was in tropical
Chicago. Like a typhoon with nowhere to be,

I am the dissipating clouds over empty Idaho.
Constant funnel clouds have plagued since

the first diagnosis. Tomorrow: chance of snow
with little to no discernible accumulation.
​

How to Assume the Tornado Position


In grammar school, I learned to index: dire, times in; emergency, in case of; survival; inextricably, fucked. I was taught to love the innermost wall, the windowless space, the inhabitants that seek shelter. I pursued the body’s natural reactions when struck with panic. The limpness, the aches of security, the sound of a voice when I can’t discern a body. At the sound of the safe whistle allowing the body relief, I learned to drool on command.
(see also: ponderous--how a body still beating and a body beaten differ only in the placement of the hands).
​




​--
Eric Morris teaches writing at The University of Akron and serves as a poetry editor for Barn Owl Review. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pank, Post Road, The Collagist, Anti-, Devil’s Lake, Weave, Redactions, and others. He lives and writes in Akron, OH where he searches (mostly in vain) for a way to lift the curse of Cleveland sports.

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Masthead
  • Submit
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Submit Here
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Book Reviews
  • Previous Issues
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
      • Jezzelle Kellam Fall 2022
      • Irina Greciuhina Fall 2022
      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
      • Mark Yale Harris Fall 2022
      • Amy Nelder Fall 2022
      • Bette Ridgeway Fall 2022
      • Ursula Sokolowska Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
      • Lisa Ampleman Fall 2022
      • Will Cordeiro Fall 2022
      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
      • Peter O'Donovan Fall 2022
      • Mackenzie Carignan Fall 2022
      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
      • Barbara Saunier Fall 2022
      • Chad Weeden Fall 2022
      • Nick Rattner Fall 2022
      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
      • Summer J. Hart Fall 2022
      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
      • Liz Robbins Fall 2022
      • john compton Fall 2022
      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
      • Rachel Reynolds Fall 2022
      • Kimberly Ann Priest Fall 2022
      • Annie Przypyszny Fall 2022
      • Konstantin Kulakov Fall 2022
      • Nellie Cox Fall 2022
      • Jennifer Martelli Fall 2022
      • SM Stubbs Fall 2022
      • Joshua Bird Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
      • Otis Fuqua Fall 2022
      • Hannah Harlow Fall 2022
      • Natalia Nebel Fall 2022
      • Kate Maxwell Fall 2022
      • Helena Pantsis Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
      • Courtney Ludwick Fall 2022
      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022